The publication presents a new, complete and authentic translation of “The Old English Baron” (1777) - a novel by the English writer Clara Reeve (1729-1807), which became a remarkable milestone in the history of European Gothic prose, which enjoyed extraordinary reader popularity at the end of the 18th century century and received a multifaceted and impressive development in the literature of the next two centuries. Indebted in its plot concept and some artistic devices to Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto, which was the starting point of the new genre, Reeve's book remained for a long time in the shadow of its predecessor, as well as the works of Anne Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin and other Gothic narratives of later times. time. Meanwhile, it was “The Old English Baron” that played a significant role in the formation of the suggestive poetics of fear, fundamental to the Gothic novel and which found extensive embodiment in the prose of the mentioned authors—the literary successors of Clara Reeve. Avoiding as much as possible an open demonstration of the terrible and supernatural, the novelist emphasized the atmosphere of anxious anticipation of unknown danger and superstitious fear of encountering otherworldly forces. An expressive picture of the abandoned, dilapidated chambers of Lovel Castle, immersed in darkness, perfectly suited for the appearance of ghosts, dull groans and mysterious night noises heard in gloomy rooms, doors that mystically swing open in front of young Edmund Twyford, prophetic dreams that reveal an ominous a secret of an ancient family and directly predicting the course of further events of the novel - all these elements of Reeve’s narrative meaningfully enriched the repertoire of aesthetic emotions and the arsenal of visual means of the Gothic genre and very soon became an integral part of its poetics. The first Russian translation of “The Old English Baron”, made from a French translation -mediator (and for this reason in some places quite far from the original), saw the light more than two hundred years ago, during the life of the novelist; the new translation published in this edition presents to the Russian reader for the first time the original text of the book of Riv. The publication is supplemented by a critical-biographical essay about the author of the novel, written by the famous Scottish romantic writer Walter Scott and also translated into Russian for the first time. The publication is equipped with scientific articles, detailed notes and illustrations.