Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

wild, theatrical, and shockingly funny if you let it be

The Castle of Otranto is one of those books that becomes infinitely more fun the moment you realize you’re supposed to be laughing. Walpole wasn’t writing solemn Victorian gloom; he was a Georgian showman staging a supernatural soap opera with medieval props and zero restraint. Once you give yourself permission to enjoy the chaos on its own terms, the whole thing becomes delightful.

The plot is… well, “plot.” A giant helmet show more falls from the sky. Suits of armor wander around like they’re late for a costume party. Secret princes and long-lost heirs materialize on cue. People faint at the sight of trees. The villain wants to swap brides mid-book because of a prophecy that’s never fully explained. Every emotional reaction is dialed up to 100 and held there.

And the dialogue?
Chef’s kiss.
Everyone is shouting, swooning, or making declarations that would embarrass a telenovela.

This isn’t Gothic as we usually imagine it — no misty Victorian repression, no subtle psychological dread. This is proto-Gothic, built during the Georgian era when the theatrical, the sentimental, and the downright ridiculous were not bugs but features. Walpole is inventing the genre as he goes, and he does it with all the subtlety of a flying helmet.

If you go in expecting brooding atmosphere and dread, you’ll be confused.
If you go in expecting camp, melodrama, and proto-horror absurdity, you’ll have a blast.

Sometimes the fun of reading older literature is letting it be what it is. And Otranto, wild as it is, lays the groundwork for everything that comes after — Radcliffe, Lewis, the Brontës, the Victorians, the whole Gothic line.

I laughed, I rolled my eyes, I admired the audacity.
A chaotic little masterpiece of early Gothic imagination. show less

Characters in Victorian horror novels are always feeling jumpy having read this before bed, so I finally did as well to see what the fuss was about. There are almost no thrills or chills at all in the entire story; it’s a social melodrama that sounds like the absurd and convoluted plot of a Victorian opera, only without music. The moment any character enters a spooky scene alone, several others rush in to argue or sword fight or beseech each other to do things. The author rambles on at show more length in the preface(s!) like a drunk professor talking at anyone within earshot about obscure historical Voltaire facts you can tell were his pet talking point/ outrage. Horace seems like he may have been a tiresome fellow. show less

"Let the critics have their own way; they give me no uneasiness. I have not written the book for the present age, which will endure nothing but cold common sense."
-- Walpole, letter to Madame du Deffand (1765?)

The novel doesn't read as smoothly or engagingly as a thriller written today, but it's chock-a-block full of arresting scenes and images: the Prince's teen heir crushed beneath a giant casque falling from nowhere; an ancestral portrait leaves its frame, displeased with events; rumour show more of incest and forced betrothal; secret passages and trap doors; mute knights; duels between champions; a hermit in haunted caverns by the sea; riddles and portents; a praying skeleton & a bleeding statue.

These are punctuated with mad designs and intrigues by a large cast of characters, scheming against one another and initially it is bedlam, unclear to me which are in the right and deserving of my support.

"It was his object to unite the marvellous turn of incident, and imposing tone of chivalry, exhibited in the ancient romance, with that accurate exhibition of human character, and contrast of feelings and passions, which is, or ought to be, delineated in the modern novel."
-- Sir Walter Scott, Introduction (1811)

Scott later chastises Walpole for putting too much into the novel, overfilling it with supernatural events such that our senses of fear and terror are overwhelmed. I allow there are a great many of what now count as cliché and stereotype; for me these keep the story aloft. If anything, with a poor recollection of the details from reading years ago, I worried there would be too little in the way of weird or wondrous, so Walpole's largesse was welcome.

"The Castle Of Otranto ... is not so much a novel as a state of mind."
-- Marvin Mudrick, Introduction (1963)

This 2022 re-reading was more or less an impulse read in the spirit of Hallowe'en. I should consider Vathek for next season. show less

…and sometimes even classics can seem outdated. I have read more than my share of works written in the 18th century and have to begin by observing that I found the writing not so much difficult as overly stylized. This is due, in part, to the fact that Walpole introduced the work with the claim that it was actually a rediscovered text dating to the Crusades; undoubtedly much of the style is attributable to his effort to help “sell” that claim. Understanding the reason, though, show more doesn’t make the work any more enjoyable to read and the often-forced melodrama doesn’t help either. The book is generally credited with being the first true Gothic story, a claim I have no trouble accepting. The story is a mere 83 pages long but I will admit that those 83 pages took me longer to slog through than many books twice or three times as long. While I understand and even happily accept the work’s significance in literary history, I can’t admit to enjoying it, though I have great respect for its inventiveness and its technical construction. I’m glad I read it and even happier than I’ll never need to read it again. (The rating is as high as it is in recognition of the achievement, not how much I enjoyed it.) show less