Horace Walpole was a significant figure in literary history, but his reputation would stand even higher if he had excelled in what today are regarded as the "major" genres. He wrote a pioneering book which initiated the Gothic novel; he produced a...

Horace Walpole is known to literary scholars as the founder of a significant literary genre, the gothic novel, which he initiated with the publication of The Castle of Otranto, A Story. Translated by William Marshal, Gent. From the Original Italian of...

Horace Walpole's literary productions reflect an extraordinary range of talents and interests: author of the first and most influential Gothic novel in English and of the first example of Gothic drama, he was also a poet, an indefatigable letter...

Horace Walpole - (1717 - 1797) English novelist, biographer, memoirist, historian, essayist, playwright, and letter writer. One of the most flamboyant personalities in eighteenth-century English letters, Walpole is often considered the outstanding...

Born September 24, 1717London, EnglandDied March 2, 1797London, England Writer, historian,...

Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (24 September, 1717 – 2 March, 1797), more commonly known as Horace Walpole, was a politician, writer, architectural innovator and cousin of Lord Nelson. His Letters are highly readable, and give a vivid picture...

What does it mean to talk about sexuality in the eighteenth century? What can historians of sexuality accomplish without the keyhole testimonies that prove our subjects had sex with members of their own gender? Scholars often, for obvious reasons, ignore the nagging sense...

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In the following essay, Stein examines Walpole's attitude toward Shakespeare—especially through his defense of Shakespeare against Voltaire. Stein concludes that, although Walpole regarded Shakespeare, highly he was not one of Walpole's literary influences.

In the following excerpt from The Haunted Castle: A Study of the Elements of English Romanticism (1964), Railo discusses the importance of castle imagery—and specifically Strawberry Hill—to The Castle of Otranto.

In the following excerpt from her Ghosts of the Gothic: Austen, Eliot, & Lawrence (1980), Wilt examines the religious import of Walpole's Gothic tale.