Product Description

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'. He gives us a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests. Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate success and Walpole's own favourite among his numerous works. His friend, the poet Thomas Gray, wrote that he and his family, having read Otranto, were now `afraid to go to bed o'nights'. The novel is here reprinted from a text of 1798, the last that Walpole himself prepared for the press.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #379954 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-18
• Released on: 2003-02-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
`with each volume having an introduction by an acknowledged expert, and exhaustive notes, the World's Classics are surely the most desirable series and, all-round, the best value for money' Oxford Times

Ingram
A fast paced story of jealous passion, intrigue, murder and supernatural phenomena, unfolding in an atmosphere of thunderclaps, moonlight, and dark castle walls--mirroring the inner turmoils of the characters themselves. 2 cassettes.

From the Back Cover
This Broadview edition pairs the first Gothic novel with the first Gothic drama, both by Horace Walpole. Published on Christmas Eve, 1764, on Walpole's private press at Strawberry Hill, his Gothicized country house, The Castle of Otranto became an instant and immediate classic of the Gothic genre as well as the prototype for Gothic fiction for the next two hundred years. Walpole's brooding and intense drama, The Mysterious Mother, focuses on the protagonist's angst over an act of incest with his mother, and includes the appearance of Father Benedict, Gothic literature's first evil monk. Appendices in this edition include selections from Walpole’s letters, contemporary responses, and writings illustrating the aesthetic and intellectual climate of the period. Also included is Sir Walter Scott’s introduction to the 1811 edition of The Castle of Otranto.