Authors: Horace Walpole, W. S. Lewis (Editor), E. J. Clery
ISBN-13: 9780199537211, ISBN-10: 0199537216
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: January 2009
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Horace Walpole (1717-1797), Fourth Earl of Oxford, was the son of the Whig prime minister Robert Walpole. In 1774 he moved to Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, which he transformed into his "little Gothic castle."
First published pseudonymously in 1764, The Castle of Otranto purported to be a translation of an Italian story of the time of the crusades. In it Walpole attempted, as he declared in the Preface to the Second Edition, "to blend the two kinds of romance: the ancient and the modern." Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate success and Walpole's own favorite among his numerous works. The novel is reprinted here from a text of 1798, the last that Walpole himself prepared for the press.
Introduction: Horace Walpole and The Castle of Otranto | vii | |
The Castle of Otranto | ||
Sir Walter Scott's Introduction | 3 | |
Preface to the First Edition | 17 | |
Preface to the Second Edition | 21 | |
The Castle of Otranto | 27 |