|
Showing 1 - 25 of
626 matches in All Departments
'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 his wedding
day, Manfred determines to marry the bride-to-be. The virgin
Isabella flees through a castle riddled with secret passages.
Chilling coincidences, ghostly visitations, arcane revelations, and
violent combat combine in a heady mix that terrified the novel's
first readers. In this new edition Nick Groom examines the reasons
for its extraordinary impact and the Gothic culture from which it
sprang. The Castle of Otranto was a game-changer, and Walpole the
writer who paved the way for modern horror exponents. ABOUT THE
SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
available the widest range of literature from around the globe.
Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship,
providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable
features, including expert introductions by leading authorities,
helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for
further study, and much more.
"Walpole's achievement has to be saluted all the more when it is
realized that single-handedly he determined (or distorted) the
writing of landscape architecture history to this day' John Dixon
Hunt in Greater Perfection: the practice of garden theory" 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
modernisation, 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
symbolised absolutism, tyranny, and the oppression of nature.
Manfred, the lord of the castle of Otranto, has long lived in dread
of an ancient prophecy: it's foretold that when his family line
ends, the true owner of the castle will appear and claim it. In a
desperate bid to keep the castle, Manfred plans to coerce a young
woman named Isabella into marrying him. Isabella refuses to yield
to Manfred's reprehensible plan. But once she escapes into the
depths of the castle, it becomes clear that Manfred isn't the only
threat. As Isabelle loses herself in the seemingly endless hallways
below, voices reverberate from the walls and specters wander
through the dungeons. Otranto appears to be alive, and it's seeking
revenge for the sins of the past.
The publication of this four-volume edition of Horace Walpole's
Memoirs of the Reign of King George III completes the monumental
Yale Walpole Edition that also includes 48 volumes of
correspondence and three volumes of Memoirs of King George II.
Walpole's aim in Memoirs of the Reign of King George III was not
to chronicle events year by year (October 1760 - February 1772), as
he had done in Memoirs of King George II, but to defend what he
called his "return to action" and to attack those who had thwarted
it. Yet previous editors, first Sir Denis le Marchant in 1845 and
then G. F. Russell Barker in 1894, abridged or altered much of what
Walpole said about his friends and his enemies, and left out most
of his lies and fantasies about the British Royal Family. These
editors produced a narrative that seemed impersonal as well as
impartial, the work of a detached spectator rather than a committed
participant. The present edition is the first to go back to the
manuscripts and give Walpole's text in its entirety, unabridged and
unexpurgated, together with an introduction and annotation designed
to help reassess the value of the memoirs as historical
evidence.
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.
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger
PublishingA AcentsAcentsa A-Acentsa Acentss Legacy Reprint Series.
Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks,
notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this
work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of
our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's
literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of
thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of intere
When tragedy strikes on his son's wedding day, Lord Manfred
believes it is a foreboding omen, and will do whatever it takes to
stop it-no matter how immoral. Set in the 18th century, The Castle
of Otranto begins on the day Manfred's son, Conrad, was meant to be
married. Known for his sickly nature, Conrad is the eldest child of
two, and is set to marry Princess Isabella, a union that would reap
strong benefits for the noble family. However, when tragedy strikes
right before the ceremony, Manfred is terrified that it is a
premonition of a bad luck curse. Paranoid that the curse would
threaten his bloodline, he leaps into action. Determined to
strengthen his legacy before it's too late, Manfred decides to
divorce his wife so that he can marry Isabella in his son's place.
However, when Isabella adamantly refuses, Manfred slips into a
manic state of immorality, as he becomes desperate to do whatever
it takes to marry Isabella. After Theodore, a brave peasant man
with mysterious origins, becomes dedicated to protecting Isabella
from Manfred, the lord must outsmart and overpower the couple to
get his way. Through coercion, capture, and even murder, Manfred
will do anything to avoid the threat of a curse. First published
under a pseudonym in 1764, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
is regarded as the first gothic horror novel, a literary genre that
later flourished in the 18th and 19th century. Walpole's work has
shaped the modern-day gothic aesthetic in literature, film, art,
and music. The Castle of Otranto and the genre it inspired also
encouraged many major writers, such as Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker,
and Edgar Allan Poe. Featuring a dark narrative, twists, tragedy,
and elements of surrealism, The Castle of Otranto is dramatic and
shocking, enthralling from start to finish. This edition of The
Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole features an eye-catching new
cover design and is printed in a font that is both modern and
readable. With these accommodations, The Castle of Otranto caters
to a contemporary audience while preserving the original innovation
of Horace Walpole's work.
When Conrad, son of Prince Manfred of Otranto, is killed in
mysterious circumstances on his wedding day, his father, fearing
his line is at an end, declares that he will divorce his wife and
marry his late son's intended bride. Soon, however, this planned
union brings about a series of supernatural events, tragic
misunderstandings and cold-blooded murder. Presented as the
translation of a medieval Italian text from the time of the
crusades, The Castle of Otranto was the first and most influential
novel of the eighteenth-century Gothic revival, and introduced
several of what became its most recognizable tropes. This edition
contains extra material about the author's life and works, notes
and bibliographic information
First published as a scholarly translation from an ancient Italian text, this tale of a fatal prophecy set in the time of the crusades inspired terror in its early readers. On receiving a copy, the poet Thomas Gray wrote to Walpole admitting that he was "afraid to go to bed o'nights", little suspecting that his friend was the novel's true author. With The Castle of Otranto, Walpole established the Gothic as a literary form in England. The eerie architecture of the castle and its adjacent monastery, the guilty secrets and unlawful desires of its inhabitants, and the supernatural happenings have inspired writers in this tradition from Ann Radcliffe and Bram Stoker, to Daphne Du Maurier and Stephen King.
|
|