| Sumario: | This article argues that Horace Walpole's gothic tropes dramatize the consequences of sharing or blocking information at a time when its availability was expanding. The Castle of Otranto implies that better information sharing might have prevented the novel's greatest tragedy, the heroine Matilda's death. Three prophecies foresee different fates for Matilda; although one—the riddle on the sword—counsels that "Aflonso's blood" could save her. The characters fail to solve the riddle because they do not share their information about how the past influences the present. However, if failing to share information carries tragic consequences, open communication might further empower dangerous social and political actors. In his work for Parliament, Walpole turns the gothic qualities of information into an agonistic tool. With his queer male friends, however, Walpole finds an alternative vision of information sharing, forming a "committee of taste" to design Strawberry Hill with social structures that better enable information sharing, albeit within an aristocratic coterie.
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