Horace Walpole

Biography

The 4th Earl of Orford was Horatio Walpole. Horace Walpole was a Whig politician, a man of letters, antiquarian, art historian, and English writer who was born on September 24, 1717, and died on March 2, 1797.

He built Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, southwest London, decades before his Victorian successors did, reinstating the Gothic style. His literary renown is built on the first Gothic book, The Castle of Otranto (1764), as well as his Letters, which are major social and political works. Yale University Press has released them in 48 volumes.

On his nephew's death in 1791, he became the 4th and final Earl of Orford, the youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford. His Walpole barony passed to his first cousin once removed, Baron Walpole of Wolterton, who shared his surname. Later, the younger Horatio Walpole was made Earl of Orford.

The prefaces to both versions, as well as the narration within the book itself, are lighthearted. The tale begins with Manfred's (the Prince of Otranto) son being crushed beneath a giant helmet that arises due to magical forces. However, that scene, as well as the remainder of the narrative, contains a combination of absurd and magnificent supernatural aspects. Finally, the narrative explains how Manfred's family has been polluted in a way that has become a template for subsequent Gothic stories.

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