Bit of Ivory

Just a little friendly advice: If you can possibly avoid reading The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, do so. *shudders*

Having now read several novels that were popular at the time Jane Austen was writing, I have come to the conclusion that Austen was so far ahead of her time, she should have been born at least 30 years later. Austen is as far superior to Anne Radcliffe and Sir Walter Scott and Fanny Burney as J.K. Rowling is to R.L. Stine.

No wonder Austen could write such a biting parody of Gothic novels. Most of them were awful.