Horace Walpole
Horace Walpole (1717–1797) was an English writer and politician, best known for *The Castle of Otranto* (1764), widely considered the first Gothic novel.
Son of Prime Minister Robert Walpole, he served in Parliament but is remembered chiefly for his literary output and voluminous correspondence, which provides a vivid portrait of 18th-century English society.
His Gothic mansion at Strawberry Hill helped launch the Gothic Revival in architecture.
- antiquarianismEnthusiasm for old artifacts
- Whig PartyLegislative supremacy advocates
- Gothic RevivalArchitectural return to medieval forms
- haunted castleSpirit-inhabited medieval fortress
- supernaturalBeyond natural explanation
letter writer · decorative arts · ghost story · political satire · art history · Romanticism · connoisseur · literary influence · medievalism · literary salon · British Parliament · literary innovation · aristocracy · turrets · social commentary · political legacy · correspondence · historical preservation
- British AuthorsCharles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Roald Dahl
- 1700s WritersAlexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Samuel Richardson, Daniel Defoe
- Famous Letter WritersCicero, Pliny, Seneca, Voltaire, Abigail Adams
- Georgian BritonsJane Austen, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, John Keats, William Blake
- Noble WritersLord Byron, Marquis de Sade, Bertrand Russell
- Pre-Romanticismsensibility, sublime, gothic novel, Rousseau, Goethe
Horace WalpoleSamuel Richardson
Daniel Defoe · Jonathan Swift · Alexander Pope · John Locke · realist
Horace WalpoleWilliam Wilberforce