By a mile, this is the most brilliant and most influential essay ever written on English garden history. For two centuries it mapped the whole landscape of the subject. However, the author was partial in the highest degree. Horace Walpole believed in progress, in modernization, and the superiority of everything English to almost everything that had gone before. He had a special dislike of Baroque gardens, as exemplified by Versailles, which for him symbolized absolutism, tyranny, and the oppression of nature.

Horace Walpole is credited by many with the invention of the Gothic Novel. The author claimed to have written 'The Castle of Otranto' - a medieval mystery story set in a haunted castle peopled by fantastic characters - after s night of dreams. It is a fitting origin for this dark book of terror and mystery, an attempt, in Walpole's own words, "to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern." Walpole's literary experiment has proved to be a great success, and The Castle of Otranto has rarely been out of print since its first publication in 1764.

Many of the gothic romance and horror stories, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The founding work of Gothic fiction

On the day of his wedding, Conrad, heir to the house of Otranto, is killed in mysterious circumstances. His calculating father Manfred fears that his dynasty will now come to an end and determines to marry his son's bride himself - despite the fact he is already married. But a series of terrifying supernatural omens soon threaten this unlawful union, as the curse placed on Manfred's ancestor, who usurped the lawful Prince of Otranto, begins to unfold. First published pseudonymously in 1764, purporting to be an ancient Italian text from the time...

'Look, my lord See heaven itself declares against your impious intentions '
The Castle of Otranto (1764) is the first supernatural English novel and one of the most influential works of Gothic fiction. It inaugurated a literary genre that will be forever associated with the effects that Walpole pioneered. Professing to be a translation of a mysterious Italian tale from the darkest Middle Ages, the novel tells of Manfred, prince of Otranto, whose fear of an ancient prophecy sets him on a course of destruction. After the grotesque death of his only son, Conrad, on...

Furst Manfred sieht seine Erbfolge als bereits gesichert an. Doch eine dunkle Prophezeiung kundigt Verderben an. Als sein Sohn Conrad am Tage seiner Hochzeit von einem gigantischen Helm erschlagen wird, ist dies nur die erste unheilvolle Begebenheit, die sich zutragt. Das dustere Gemauer scheint ein unheimliches Eigenleben zu entwickeln. Horace Walpole (1717-1797) war britischer Schriftsteller und Kunstler. Mit seinem Roman -Die Burg von Otranto- begrundete er das Genre der Gothic Novel. Der Bau seines Schlosses Strawberry Hill bereitete den Weg fur den Architekturstil der Neogotik.

Offers an extensive selection of author's letters, arranged by subject so that you can choose from themes including social life, the Court, politics, literature, and the evolution of his Gothic castle and art and book collections at Strawberry Hill.