'Gloomth’

Golden Gloom

By Cristina Schek

Delighted to show you the cover illustration for the September Issue of Suspense Review Magazine (*)

‘Gloomth’

The inspiration for this illustration came after a visit at The Strawberry Hill House, Horace Walpole’s little Gothic Castle, where he wrote ‘The Castle of Otranto’ – first published on Christmas Eve 1764 and generally regarded as the starting point of all Gothic fiction. Printed on the first private printing press in the country at Strawberry Hill, it was the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the tales of mystery and imagination by Edgar Allen Poe also descended from Walpole’s bizarre fantasy.

This is the main entrance into the castle, and Walpole had designed it so that the hallways were deliberately kept dark (lit by one candle only) to create an atmosphere of medieval “gloomth” or “golden gloom”, as he called it – not melancholy, but the golden warmth of cathedrals.

Come in, enjoy your stay and happy reading!

(*) My wonderful & creative collaboration with ‘Suspense Review‘, a monthly eMagazine dedicated to the writers and fans of suspense literature - whose covers and visuals I provide since 2012.

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P.S. Horace Walpole is also credited with coining or introducing over 233 words into English, including airsickness, fairy tale, falsetto, frisson, impressario, malaria, mudbath, serendipity and souvenir.