Reeve's claim to Gothic fame is her novel The Old English Baron, published in 1778; the novel had been published the year before under the title The Champion of Virtue, a less sensational (and less marketable) title but one more indicative of Reeve's thematic concerns. She was also interested in correcting the Gothic excesses of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto, though it's impossible to say that the supernaturalism in Reeve's novel is subtle, even if she never allows any supernatural beings to show their faces. Reeve also contributed to literary history with her 1785 volume The Progress of Romance, an analysis of the evolution of epic into romance and then into the novel. None of Reeve's other novels or writings deal with the Gothic, and none had the popularity of Old English Baron.
Sites:
Memoir 
Included as a prefatory note in the 1883 Nimmo & Bain edition of The Old English Baron (the basis of the etext listed below), this anonymous "Memoir" provides a few biographical facts about Reeve before moving to a discussion and critique of her theory of literary supernaturalism. (14K)
Brief biographical note
[1911 Encyclopedia]
Brief biographical note
[Columbia Encyclopedia, Bartleby]
Brief biographical note
Also looks at the authenticity of an excerpt included by Reeve in her The Prograss of Romance [Norton Topics Online]
Brief overview
by George Saintsbury, from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (1907-1921) [Bartleby.com]
Very brief biographical note
From an 1807 issue of Gentleman's Magazine. [Corvey Women Writers on the Web, Sheffield Hallam U]
Brief note
[Gothic Labyrinth]
Brief biographical note[John W. Cousins, A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature, 1910]
Bibliograpy
[Guide to Supernatural Fiction, Tartarus Press]
Etexts:
The Old English Baron (312K)
The full etext of Reeve's classic Gothic novel.
-- Preface to The Old English Baron. [Michael Gamer, U Penn]
-- Title page and frontispiece to the 6th edition (1797) of The Old English Baron. [Corvey Women Writers on the Web, Sheffield Hallam U]
Reeve's novel was dramatized in 1799 as Edmond, Orphan of the Castle.
-- Title page and frontispiece to the 6th edition (1797) of The Old English Baron. [Corvey Women Writers on the Web, Sheffield Hallam U]
Reeve's novel was dramatized in 1799 as Edmond, Orphan of the Castle.
Essays and Reviews:
Discussion of Castle of Otranto and Old English Baron [Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907-21)]
This portrait of Reeve, drawn by A. H. Tourrier and etched by Ben Damman, served as the frontispiece to The Old English Baron and The Castle of Otronto [sic] by Reeve and Walpole (London: J. C. Nimmo and Bain, 1883)
