The Castle of Ollada

"The sound approached towards him--the chains rattled vehemently; scarcely had he sprung from his chair, and seized his sword, ere the door flew open, and a spectre, with a naked body covered with wounds, from which the blood still seemed to gush, with clotted hair and eyes dripping with blood, rendered visible by a flame which burnt on the crown of its head, replete with purple gashes, stood before him."

In The Castle of Ollada, the first novel by Gothic master Francis Lathom, young Altador seeks to solve the mystery of the ancient castle of Ollada and win the love of the beautiful Matilda. Why does his uncle, the Baron Garcia, refuse to inhabit the castle? And what is the bloodstained spectre that has been seen haunting its ruined halls?

An immediate success when first published in 1795, The Castle of Ollada made Francis Lathom a celebrity at age 18. Inspired by Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto and the novels of Ann Radcliffe, The Castle of Ollada will captivate modern readers with its gloomy atmosphere and dark Gothic mysteries.