The Old English Baron

by Clara Reeve

This edition includes the following editor's Clara Reeve and the beginnings of the gothic novel"The Old English Baron" is a Gothic novel by English writer Clara Reeve, published anonymously in 1777 under the title "The Champion of Virtue; a Gothic Story."
"The Old English Baron" is one of the most influential Gothic novels of its time. Bibliographically it ranks as a rival to Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto." In fact, for much of the 19th century the two novels were published together.

The novel follows the adventures of Sir Philip Harclay, who returns to medieval England and discovers that the castle of his comrade, Lord Lovel, has been usurped. This operation uncovers a complex web of betrayal and nefarious alliances, leading to hand-to-hand combat worthy of any Walter Scott novel.

"The Old English Baron" was brought to the stage in 1799.

Genres: Gothic, Classics, Horror, Fiction, 18th Century, British Literature, Gothic Horror

184 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1777

About the author

Reeve was born in Ipswich, England, one of the eight children of Reverend Willian Reeve, M.A., Rector of Freston and of Kreson in Suffolk, and perpetual curate of St Nicholas. Her mother's maiden name was Smithies, daughter of a Smithies, a goldsmith and jeweller to King George I. In a letter to one of her friends Reeve said the following of her father and her early life:

My father was an old Whig; from him I have learned all that I know; he was my oracle; he used to make me read the Parliamentary debates, while he smoked his pipe after supper. I gaped and yawned over them at the time, but, unawares to myself, they fixed my principles once and for all. He made me read Rapin's History of England; the information it gave made amends for its dryness. I read Cato's Letters by Trenchard and Gordon; I read the Greek and Roman histories, and Plutarch's Lives: all these at an age when few people of either sex can read their names.

After the death of her father, she lived with her mother and sisters in Colchester. It was here that she first became an author, publishing a translation of a work by Barclay under the title of The Phoenix (1772).

She was the author of several novels, of which only one is remembered: The Champion of Virtue, later known as The Old English Baron (1777), written in imitation of, or rivalry with, the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, with which it has often been printed.

The first edition under the title of The Old English Baron was dedicated to the daughter of Samuel Richardson, who is said to have helped Reeve revise and correct the novel.

Her novel noticeably influenced Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. She also wrote the epistolatory novel The School for Widows (1791). Her innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785), can be regarded generally as a precursor to modern histories of the novel and specifically as upholding the tradition of female literary history heralded by Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) and Susannah Dobson, d. 1795. One of the stories in this work, "The History of Charoba, Queen of Egypt", was the inspiration for Walter Savage Landor's first major work Gebir.

Reeve led a retired life, leaving very little biographical material. She died at Ipswitch, and was buried by her own direction in the churchyard of St. Stephens, next to her friend the Reverend Derby.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not appreciating the pre-camp sensibility of "Otranto," Reeve toned down the supernatural element in the gothic in order to fashion a fiction less baroque and ridiculous than Walpole's. She succeeded, but produced something far inferior: a gothic narrative so staid and so filled with courteous, well-bred characters (even the murderer!) that the reader is completely bored by the time he reaches the end of this very short novel.

The denouement (featuring a detailed description of an ad hoc commission of nobles designed--among other things--to resolve a property dispute) is excruciatingly dull, even by the Clara Reeve standard.

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable, intriguing read. I'd definitely recommend.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A ghost," sniffs Clara Reeve, "must keep within certain limits of credibility."

She's complaining about The Castle of Otranto (1764), the original Gothic novel. Giant death helmets and moving paintings, she argues, "instead of attention, excite laughter." Which is true, and Castle of Otranto is silly - but it's also entertaining, unlike The Old English Baron (1778).

The story in this slim and forgettable book is a watered-down Hamlet. Ghosts cry out for vengeance; etc. Along the way we hit many of the standard Gothic tropes, which means that it's time for

The Gothic Novel Drinking Game!
for which I was helped by this terrific Guardian article, and also by my friend Dawn

One Drink
- Fainting
- Creepy noises
- Nasty weather
- Impenetrably ornate sentences
- Eyes are scary

Two Drinks
- A suit of armor makes an appearance without someone in it
---- +1 and falls over, making a racket
- Sinister paintings (lockets acceptable)
- A lady is in her nightgown
- Virginity is threatened

Three Drinks
- An "irruption of poems" (h/t Schmidt for phrasing)
- It's an epistolary
Characters
- Someone could be described as "Byronic"
- Surprise relative!
----- +1 almost incest
----- +2 actual incest
- relative turns out to be a villain
- There is a monster or ghost
---- +1 monster turns out to be villainous relative
                                                (the "Scooby Doo Bonus")
Setting
- There is a castle
---- +1 castle is from Gothic period
---- +1 castle is busted
---- +1 castle is in isolated location
---- +1 castle is cursed
---- +2 castle has secret passageways and/or forbidden wing

So. The first three quarters of the book will get you drunk as fuck, and it's fine. It's not bad. It's not really much of anything, to be honest. Unfortunately by the time you get through the last quarter you'll be hung over, because it's just everyone endlessly congratulating each other on figuring everything out. (A la the last third of Pamela, a book Reeve admired.) It's almost as boring as Mysteries of Udolpho, which also deals in sober, credible ghosts, and is also lame.

So here's the thing: if you didn't want to be silly, you shouldn't have written a Gothic. Give the choice between credibility and silliness, I'll take The Monk.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of politics, little to no ghost action, and surprise epilogue incest in the eleventh hour. Could have lived without that

[Sotiris Karaiskos · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is commonly accepted that his first gothic novel it's the The Castle of Otranto , after reading, however, this book I now have the impression that this is the first REAL gothic novel, a book that has all the elements which will dominate over the next few decades in gothic literature. The story is typical of the genre, with its predominant element being the effort of a young man to correct injustices of past years, which came from people without ethical principles. At the end, naturally, through some adventures and with the intervention of supernatural powers the divine order is restored, thus transferring the Christian message that at the end the good will triumph and love will conquer everything. Beyond that, the element that connects the book with anything that followed is the wonderful writing which describes in an excellent way particularly emotional situations (maybe to emotional) and creates an atmosphere of mystery which enchants the reader. So in the end what I can say is that it is a book of particular importance in the history of literature and also a very entertaining one, even for the modern reader. This is why I will go against the current and give it the perfect score.

[Samichtime · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s so corny it wouldn’t feel out of place if Shrek was reading it to his donkey. 🫏Very cliche and extremely unoriginal, but I liked it 😎

[Darke Conteur · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my quest to read more classic novels, I came across this book on Kobo under their public domain section.

First published in 1778, it is not an original piece, but rather a re-write of another book; The Castle of Otranto which was written twenty years prior. I found this very interesting, as now a days, such an undertaking would be nothing short of plagiarism. Curious, I looked up and downloaded the original book as well.

An English Baron is the tale of a young man, a peasant by birth (or so we are led to believe), friended by the Lord of the land and given opportunities alongside his Master's children. After spending a night in the 'haunted' part of the castle, young Edmund begins a journey to discover who he really is.

It is a story of jealousy and envy, and how keeping your enemies in your heart, despite their transgressions, will make you the better person.

[Tania]

2.5

She has basically takenThe Castle of Otranto and wrung all of the fun and entertainment out of it.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Old English Baron is a novel written in 1777 by Clara Reeve. Our story begins with Sir Philip Harclay, he has just returned to England after many years abroad. In his youth, Sir Philip had developed a life-long friendship for the Lord Lovel, military duties had separated them and Sir Philip had stopped receiving answers to his letters to Lord Lovel. As soon as he returns to his home in England he sets about to discover what has happened to his friend. He travels to the home of Lord Lovel only to discover that the Lord was killed on his way home from a battle years earlier; that his pregnant wife died of grief; and that the title and estates were inherited by a cousin, the present Lord Lovel. The new Lord Lovel however, disliked the property and sold it to his brother-in-law, Lord Fitz-Owen, who I am assuming is the "old English Baron", although there end up being so many "Lords" in this I'm not totally sure.

So Sir Philip gets to the Castle of Lovel, meets the baron and his family and also a son of a local cottager, Edmund Twyford, who has become a close friend to the baron's sons, and can do just about anything better as far as I could tell. Our Edmund can shoot bow and arrow better, is better with a sword, is better reading literature, has a better personality, and is better looking, you get the idea. Nobody seems to mind this when they are young but eventually most of the male family members seem to get jealous of Edmund and begin to plot against him. Everything they try to "get" Edmund backfires and he ends up looking even better than ever. So this type of thing goes on for awhile when the priest tells Edmund a story of the "haunted" section of the castle. A section that has been closed off for years and no one ever enters, and that kind of thing. Because of this conversation Edmund is challenged to spend three nights in the haunted wing, both to prove his courage and to disprove the stories of ghosts.

Now this part of the story I found extremely strange; on the second night of his three night stay he is joined by the priest Father Oswald and a servant Joseph. While they are sitting there talking they hear from the rooms below them a sound of “clashing arms”, and something heavy falling over. They go to investigate, behind a door is a staircase leading below. There is a closet in the room, locked but with the key there. Inside is Lord Lovel’s bloody armor. Edmund then discovers some loose boards in the floor, hidden by a table. Suddenly "a dismal hollow groan was heard as if from underneath". OK, now they hear something groaning and this is what they do, Father Oswald made signs for them to kneel and he prays for the peace of the soul departed. Then Edmund vows to devote himself to the discovery of this secret, then he locks the door, keeps the key, and they all return upstairs. That's it for now. Now later in the book they will return to this room and look under the table, but not until almost the end. If I were in a room and heard groaning from under a table, I would certainly push the table away, remove the boards, and see if anyone is being kept prisoner in some dungeon under the floor, or some such thing. I certainly wouldn't just lock the door and go away.

Anyway, after this point, Edmund does eventually solve the mystery of the groaning under the table. He "disappears" from the castle and winds up staying with Sir Philip. Sir Philip helps him solve all the mysteries and sort everything out. All kinds of stuff happens, the bad guys who hated Edmund from the first confess and go away, sort of like that anyway. There is a duel, although oddly enough about the duel, our author spends more time on telling us all the people who will be at the duel, who is fighting, who the witnesses are, we have a doctor, a priest, the Lord who owns the land where they duel, it goes on and on. Longer than the duel lasts.

But strangely for me, the most annoying thing about the book was all the kneeling everybody did. It just got on my nerves after awhile. Here we go:

Upon this Edmund kneeled to the Baron; he embraced his knees.

He kneeled down with clasped hands, and uplifted eyes. William kneeled by him, and they invoked the Supreme to witness to their friendship, and implored His blessing upon it. They then rose up and embraced each other, while tears of cordial affection bedewed their cheeks.

Here he stopped; and Edmund, whose sighs almost choked him, threw himself at the Baron's feet, and wet his hand with his tears.

Upon this, Edmund threw himself at her feet, and embraced her knees.

As he drew near, he was seized with an universal trembling; he kneeled down, took his hand, kissed it, and pressed it to his heart in silence.

Edmund approached his friend and patron; he put one knee to the ground, he embraced his knees with the strongest emotions of grief and anxiety.

You get the idea anyway. I usually like my characters to be "good" or "bad" but even for me Edmund was a little too good. So I give the book overall two stars. Who knows what will happen when I re-read it someday. For now, it's time for the next one, happy reading. :-}

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best bits of this are absolutely when anyone spends a night in the 'haunted apartment' - including poking around in its lower rooms - and/or has a dream. In these moments, I thought of how wonderful the book could have been.

The second-best bits are anytime Edmund takes crap from a resentful quasi relative or friend who once admired him, but has become jealous and is even willing to enter into any backroom conspiracies involving at the very least spoiling Edmund's spotless reputation - or at worst, getting him dead. No matter what happens, Edmund is an unending nice guy, and will not fire his family.

The worst bit is the denouement...which goes on way too long, and is sort of a soul-sapping mishmash of the trade-and-finance scenes of The Phantom Menace, and the finale of Love's Labour's Lost sewn to the end of A Muppet Christmas Carol. Any Scrooges present may be redeemed, lovers may hurriedly pair off, but there are still a lot of inheritance and property legalities to sort through during any kneeling, crying, mollifying or forgiving.

For the record, I did prefer the linked predecessor, The Castle of Otranto.

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn't have any of the things I expected, but did have a truly beautiful love between William and Edmund, and some particularly obvious avoidance of legal authority. Also a hilarious genealogy of an ending, and some not-explained supernatural.

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A riposte to Otranto, in much the same way as Radcliffe's 'The Italian' was a riposte to Lewis' 'The Monk'. Not very good; the plot is entirely predictable and there is no real sense of danger to the virtuous hero and his allies. The best bit of writing here is the preface where Reeve craves the reader's indulgence in prose that shows a verve and intelligence that is sadly missing elsewhere. Significant to the history of the gothic genre, but not really as gripping as a lot of those novels still are.

[Madisen King · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5
I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I liked this more than Castle of Otranto… hot take
Only thing that would have made this better is a real villain

[Maddy · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl just needs some poppers

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

First published in 1777, this was an ambitious re-write of Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. Since I've read Walpole's gothic novel, I was curious to know what the re-write has to offer. And to be honest, despite the negative reviews, I liked The Old English Baron much more than I did The Castle of Otranto.

Edmund, the hero, was a pious, good, noble and all the other good qualities that can be found in this world. The Baron even favored him over everyone although blood relationships made him discreet in his treatment. Everyone who met him loved him, except the villains, who were of course evil and incapable of appreciating his qualities. (Meh!) Which made Sir Robert appeared more interesting than the rest of them. He did not like Edmund due to his cousins' insinuations, however, he also did not unreasonably cruel to him.

As per the requirement of most Gothic novels, there were the mysterious infants, lost/robbed inheritance, wronged relatives, and plenty of weeping. Also, Reeve further introduced another trend, kneeling. There was plenty of kneeling that can be found here.

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is the much more sensible companion of The Castle of Otranto. It is as though Clara Reeve read that book and decided that it was all a bit too silly and ungentlemanly and that it needed to be brought back in line with English aristocratic sensibilities.

So what we have here is perhaps one of the most sensible ghost stories ever told. It is all reasonable, rarely dramatic and never hysterical.

I still think it’s been judged unfairly harshly by history though. While largely remembered only by academics as a significant step in the evolution of the gothic genre, I suggest that this is a much better novel than The Castle of Otranto. It isn’t nearly so silly, and it isn’t nearly so ghostly, but there is a mystery here, and that mystery is interesting and well-developed, even if it is somewhat predictable. More importantly, the pacing is miles better than The Castle of Otranto’s. Clara Reeve had a degree or patience that Walpole seemed not to have, and was happy to let everything unravel at its own pace.

[Jim Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the preface Clara Reeve sets out her intention of recreating the gothic saga of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, minus that book's more extravagant, over-the-top and unintentionally hilarious elements.

Much of the book is okay, but it never rises beyond that, and the agonisingly tedious, profoundly undramatic juridical climax hammered home how uninvested I was in the story and how much more fun The Castle of Otranto was.

[Momo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this for a paper and I appreciate writing a whole novel out of spite. But this was kinda whacky. And apart for like 2 pages in which Edmund bullies his adoptive dad over killing and burying his dad in a fucking closet, I was really boring.

[Jana Eichhorn · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

I bailed on Otranto, so I don't know what made me think that I'd be all about this one. Life is too short for this.

[Hannah Kelly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not terribly interesting.

[Ketutar Jensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for the UVA Library Reading Challenge 2025: Four Centuries of Women's Gothic
It was their book for January.

"This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design to unite the most attractive and interesting circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern Novel, at the same time it assumes a character and manner of its own, that differs from both; it is distinguished by the appellation of a Gothic Story, being a picture of Gothic times and manners."
She thought the book was so stuffed with things that it became ridiculous, so she rewrote it.

Edmund is pretty awful :-D He reminds me of all the heroes from the French court fairy tales. He's so handsome and perfect. He's loyal, brave, intelligent, skillful, humble, grateful, and in all manners a perfect gentleman, just because he was the son of nobles. He was born a perfect gentleman. Everyone noticed that he wasn't your ordinary peasant, even though he was rescued as basically newborn (maybe a week old?) and grew up as the son of peasants...
And he's the spitting image of his father, but no one notices it, except an old servant and his father's friend.

And it's so wonderful these noble people have so much money and property and houses all over England, so everything is arranged in the best manner.

Anyway, I am thinking about Anne of Green Gables, and I understand why she wrote what she wrote, if this is what she was reading :-D The heroes being boring milksops, and the villains being real people and interesting :-D

[Vera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh bless your heart Clara Reeve... This is the politest, noblest novel ever. The whole book can be summarised by this quote: "They were profuse in their acknowledgements of his goodness." Everyone is just rubbing each other's bellies all the time which is funny at first, but the story barely moves forward from all the pleasantries and devotions the characters bestow on each other literally every chance they get.

I do respect Reeve going "I love what Walpole was trying to do with Otranto, too bad me and all my friends think it's dogshite, here's how you do it". This is a very readable novel for the 18th century, but in trying to tone down the ridiculousness of Otranto Reeve swung the pendulum a little too far and ended up with boring: any fledgling intrigue or sense of dread is completely suffocated by the tedious probability and heavy-handed saintly goodness. However, I'm pretty sure I felt the ghost of Reeve standing behind me with a cane, menacingly whispering "do you believe in the over-ruling hand of Providence yet? Is your soul enlightened yet?" so you know, a couple of spooky points for that.

[kumori]

So if Ann Radcliffe is widely known as the mother of gothic literature, Clara Reeve is actually the grandmother of it. She was the first female writer ever that wrote gothic fiction and utilized realistic approach in her work even earlier than Radcliffe's "the explained supernatural" method.

The Old English Baron is basically a rewriting of The Castle of Otranto, (or some sort of response to it) but without the absurdity of the supernatural elements of the latter. A giant helmet that falls from the sky and other giant armor apparition in Otranto was replaced by an armoured ghost in a normal human scale, and instead of an ancient curse/prophecy of doom as a core of its gothic element, Clara Reeve used divine providence/retribution as a central theme. Last but not least, The Old English Baron doesn't have that quasi-incestuous element where supposed father-in-law obssessed with marrying his supposed daughter in law. So in short it is a moralistic, more tame, a very grounded version of The Castle of Otranto.

[Hanna (lapetiteboleyn) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another reviewer described this book as, and I'm paraphrasing to the best of my memory here, one in which everyone is so good that it just becomes unspeakably dull.
They're absolutely correct. Everyone is good, and even the villains of the piece are brought around to the error of their ways by the overwhelming power of goodness™ (and also God.)
And yet I have a very genuine affection for this book. It's all just so fantastically silly - The author herself opens by deriding The Castle of Otranto for being unrealistic, and then proceeds to write a book with a happily ever after, in which everyone behaves impeccably at all times. It's ridiculous, but also charming in its own way.

[Il lettore sul trespolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una noia mortale.
Il finale manzoniano é orribile, unito poi all'espediente del manoscritto che, al contrario di Walpole e Manzoni, qui é veramente snervante, rende il tutto pessimo.
Se il castello di Otranto era mediocre ma almeno aveva un lato involontariamente comico qui non c'è nemmeno quello, regna davvero una serietà devastante.

[Angélique Maréchal]

My worst nightmare

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see what the author was trying to do, but in removing the sillier elements of the Castle of Otranto, she was left with all the dull and soppy bits. Lots of medieval shenanigans with much heart felt emotion and some wickedness.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Continuing my informal tour of the earliest gothic novels, Clara Reeve's Old English Baron is a mostly mediocre mishmash of marginally interesting plot points drained of any interest they could have had by overly dense description and dull dialogue. Meanwhile, the actual ghost story at its center is barely there. In her preface, Clara Reeve justly criticizes The Castle of Otranto for its ridiculously implausible supernatural events, but she swings too far to the other extreme, so concerned about making her story realistic that it's not really worth reading at all.

[Lee Foust · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second English "Gothic Story" after Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, The Old English Baron is a bit like Ann Radcliffe's re-write and domestication of Lewis's The Monk with her own romance The Italian. It's an interesting fact that female as much or even more than male authors were first attracted to Walpole's combination of medieval setting, Shakespearean motifs and form, and the supernatural which soon came to be known as the Gothic. Female authors, however, shied away from the violent excesses of what Radcliffe called "Horror" in favor of the suspense and suggestiveness of "Terror," which left the murder, rape, and blood out in favor of strong heroines surviving on their wits and the ghosts all turning out to be ill-placed sheets flapping in the wind. Here we have the very first ever are-you-brave-enough-to-spend-a-night-in-the-haunted-room? plot of the genre! Commendable even if later authors exploited it for fear considerably better.

Reeve isn't quite as domesticating as Radcliffe and the ghost here is as real as can be but plays a role no bigger in the drama than to call the protagonist to action--as the ghost of Hamlet's father sets that tragedy in motion. And, interestingly, there are almost no female characters at all in this romance, but the men are so frequently rational, understanding, and choked with emotion that I found myself really wishing actual men acted this way--it was far too feminine to be true. Which I think is probably the best reason to read this novel today--it's feminized men display all of the finest characteristic associated with our construction of both genders and it's kind of a blast to see humanity presented this way. I suppose Reeve thought she was replicating the codes of medieval chivalry but it's much more like a utopic Amazon warrior planet in a cyber-fem sci. fi. novel.

Stylistically, despite Walpole's opinion that Reeve's second Gothic story of the soon-to-be genre was "dull stuff," The Old English Baron is actually quite a bit better written than his The Castle of Otranto. Walpole gets so carried away by his own novel blending of Shakespeare, the realistic novel, and the medieval romance, that his imagination gets the better of him and not only is his giant ghost more laughable than frightening, his posturing characters border on parody and the drama is more likely to make one chuckle than shiver. Not that The Old English Baron ever chilled, but it was considerably more understated, economical, and the characters--although stock images of virtue and malice--felt much more like real people than Walpole's posturing Shakespearean actors in drag. Also Reeve's narrative is continuous and really quite smooth while Walpole imitates Shakespeare's five act formula with five chapters clearly divided up into scenes themselves and jerks the reader back and forth quite a bit.

As usual with 18th century Gothic it tells you so much more about 18th century values and social norms than anything remotely medieval. It's like looking at space-age furniture made in the 1950s, a novel mix of medieval images and 18th century manners and concerns--particularly their fears in the form of what frightens them. Judging from both Walpole and Reeve it was heirs, as in the realistic novels of the period as well. I found myself reading this concurrently with Pride and Prejudice, which entails the problems surrounding an entail and the proper passing on of the gentry's property to their heirs, for instance. (And, since I was reading them concurrently I'm am going to lobby for a resurrection of the oft-used but now forgotten word "approbation." The key to understanding the British gentry's attitude of the 18th century was surely "approbation" and "disapprobation." Time to bring 'em back for political discussions on facebook--"Sir, you have earned my deepest disapprobation with your ignorant opinions regarding...")

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got through it, but it was just okay. I did love the hero who embodied goodness and kindness and strength, but he had to deal with many unsavory characters and one really fine person. It is definitely a gothic tale.