1823 Scarce edition Gothic Book - The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story by Horace Walpole
(description)
Author : Horace Walpole
Title : The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story.
Publisher : Chiswick : From the Press of C. Whittingham, sold by R. Jennings ... [and 5 others], 1823.
Language : Text in English.
Size : 5 " X 3.5 ".
Pages : 155 pages.
Binding : Very good and attractive half leather binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content : Very good content (bright, tight and clean, some foxing and staining - as shown, upper margin of title page worn and scuffed - as shown).
Illustration: Complete with the nice illustrated title page.
The book : Very rare and attractive edition of the The Castle of Otranto -- a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – "A Gothic Story". The novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetics of the book shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture. The novel initiated a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier.
The author : Horatio Walpole , 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), also known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest.