Full Description
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.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Horace Walpole: A Brief Chronology
Publication History of The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother
Using the Edition
The Castle of Otranto; A Gothic Story
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the Second Edition
Sonnet to the Right Honourable Lady Mary Coke
The Mysterious Mother; A Tragedy
Preface to the 1781 Edition
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Appendix A: Walpole's Correspondence and Strawberry Hill
The Castle of Otranto in Walpole's Letters
The Mysterious Mother in Walpole's Letters
The Little Gothic Villa at Strawberry Hill
Appendix B: Responses and Reactions
Three Early Reviews of The Castle of Otranto
Notices of The Mysterious Mother
Two Poems: Ann Yearsley's "To the Honourable H———EW———E, on Reading THE CASTLE OF OtRANTO
December, 1784" and John Courtenay's "Letter the Seventh,Naples, April 16, 1793"
Comments on The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Motherby Early Readers
Appendix C: Aesthetic and Intellectual Backgrounds
The Graveyard Poets: Alexander Pope, Thomas Parnell, John Dyer, David Mallet, Edward Young, Robert Blair, MarkAkenside, William Collins, Thomas Warton the Younger, Thomas Gray
From James Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs
From Bishop Richard Hurd's Letters on Chivalry and Romance
From Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Appendix D: Sir Walter Scott's Introduction to the 1811 Edition of The Castle of Otranto
Glossary
Bibliography