Horace Walpole

Gebundenes Buch

The Castle of Otranto

Beschreibung

The following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black letter, in the year 1529. How much sooner it was written does not appear. The principal incidents are such as were believed in the darkest ages of Christianity; but the language and conduct have nothing that savours of barbarism. The style is the purest Italian. If the story was written near the time when it is supposed to have happened, it must have been between 1095, the era of the first Crusade, and 1243, the date of the last, or not long afterwards. There is no other circumstance in the work that can lead us to guess at the period in which the scene is laid: the names of the actors are evidently fictitious, and probably disguised on purpose: yet the Spanish names of the domestics seem to indicate that this work was not composed until the establishment of the Arragonian Kings in Naples had made Spanish appellations familiar in that country. The beauty of the diction, and the zeal of the author (moderated, however, by singular judgment) concur to make me think that the date of the composition was little antecedent to that of the impression. Letters were then in their most flourishing state in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of superstition, at that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers.

Autor

Horatio Walpole, often known as Horace Walpole, was an English author, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London, restoring the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary renown is built on the first Gothic book, The Castle of Otranto (1764), as well as his Letters, which are both socially and politically significant. Yale University Press released them in 48 volumes. In 2017, a collection of Walpole's selected letters was published. The youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, he succeeded his nephew as the 4th and final Earl of Orford of the second creation when he died in 1791. Walpole was born in London as the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his wife, Catherine. He, like his father, obtained his early education at Bexley, where he was partly taught by Edward Weston. He was also schooled at Eton College and King's College in Cambridge. Walpole's first pals were possibly his cousins Francis and Henry Conway, to whom he developed close feelings, particularly Henry. He founded a schoolboy confederacy known as the "Triumvirate" at Eton with Charles Lyttelton (later an antiquary and bishop) and George Montagu (later a member of parliament and Private Secretary to Lord North). Another group of friends known as the "Quadruple Alliance" included Walpole, Thomas Gray, Richard West, and Thomas Ashton.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: 1st World Library - Literary Society
• Seitenzahl: 148
• Erscheinungstermin: 8. Februar 2006
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 222mm x 145mm x 12mm
• Gewicht: 339g
• ISBN-13: 9781421803548
• ISBN-10: 1421803542
• Artikelnr.: 21124052