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Horace Walpole - The Great Outsider (Paperback, Main)
Loot Price: R569
Discovery Miles 5 690
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Horace Walpole - The Great Outsider (Paperback, Main)
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Loot Price R569
Discovery Miles 5 690
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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Horace Walpole, famous for his novel The Castle of Otranto and his
gothick castle-villa, Strawberry Hill, has been oddly shielded by
his previous admirers. The most famous of these was W. S. Lewis, a
rich American scholar, who collected virtually all of Walpole's
surviving letters and papers and edited them in forty-eight
impressive volumes. He was however a conventional man of his times
and could not bring himself to acknowledge Walpole's homosexuality
and its implications. R. W. Ketton-Cremer, who wrote what was
otherwise a very good biography of Walpole, was similarly evasive.
Timothy Mowl's study of Horace Walpole is the first to give a
complete and convincing picture of the whole man. It is the first
to show that, despite his aristocratic connections (he was the
youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first Prime Minister)
Horace Walpole was a sexual and social outsider whose talents as a
publicist were used to serve his own agenda. Also revealed for the
first time is Walpole's passionate affair with the 9th Earl of
Lincoln. The ending of that relationship, and Walpole's subsequent
resentment of Lincoln's relatives, affected his judgment,
friendships and emotions for the rest of his life. This book
provides an honest and radical reassessment of one of the most
influential men of taste of the eighteenth-century, and is reissued
to coincide with a major Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition
dedicated to Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill. 'This is a lively,
provocative and hugely entertaining book. Whatever one makes of Dr
Mowl's interpretation of Walpole's career, it is always
intelligently argued, and presented with a polemical vigour and
sense of style which are worthy of his subject's own.' John
Adamson, Sunday Review '. . . he is lively and convincing on the
gradual accretions to Strawberry Hill, and often shrewd on the
character of his subject . . .' Pat Rogers, Times Literary
Supplement 'In general, Mowl writes delightfully, and there are
witticisms that Horry (Horace Walpole) himself would relish.' Bevis
Hillier, The Spectator 'In this vivid and entertaining biography,
Horace Walpole is properly outed.' Duncan Sprott, Gay Times '. .
.he presents the most credible picture of the man and his
achievement to date.' Martin Postle, Apollo 'This wicked, enjoyable
book should provoke wide debate.' David Watkin, Evening Standard
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