The first writers to be labeled as Gothic were Horace Walpole, Anne Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. Walpole wrote the Castle of Otranto in 1764, and is often thought to be the first Gothic writer. The other two wrote their most famous novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk in the last decade of the 18th century. There were precursors of their work, but these are the first to achieve success and popularize the term.