The document discusses the key motifs and conventions of Gothic novels. It notes that The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1767, is considered the first Gothic novel and established many Gothic devices that were later refined over the 18th and 19th centuries. Common Gothic motifs included remote and ominous settings like crumbling castles, solitary male protagonists with psychological flaws, trembling female victims, supernatural elements like demons and curses, and themes of transcending boundaries and eliciting terror in readers.