Ann Radcliffe

When Emily St. Aubert is orphaned and left in the care of her cold, scheming aunt, she is swept from the sunlit tranquility of her childhood home into the crumbling towers of Udolpho - a remote castle in the Apennines ruled by the sinister Signor Montoni. Behind a mysterious black veil, in locked chambers and moaning corridors, Emily confronts secrets that blur the line between the supernatural and the all-too-human cruelty of those who hold power over her.
Published in 1794, Ann Radcliffe's masterpiece became the most influential Gothic novel of its age - the book Jane Austen parodied in Northanger Abbey and the template every haunted-castle story since has followed.