The Castle of Otranto

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$ 10 000
Auction dateClassic
15.10.2021 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 627624
Lot 135 | The Castle of Otranto
[WALPOLE, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford (1717-1797).] The Castle of Otranto, a Story Translated by William Marshall, gent. from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto. London: Thomas Lownds, 1765 [but 1764].

Newton copy of the first edition of this mock tale of medieval horror. Inspired by a nightmare suffered at Walpole's Gothic Revival estate, Strawberry Hill, the novel purports to be a translation of a 16th-century Neapolitan manuscript by the fictional "Onuphrio Muralto." Its runaway success initiated the vogue for Gothic romances and furnished the machinery for a genre of fiction later transferred so successfully to cinema. The poet Thomas Gray told Walpole that it made "some of us cry a little." Hazen, Walpole 17; Rothschild 2491.

Octavo (169 x 107mm). (Some light spotting). Contemporary calf (joints split but holding); chemise and slipcase. Provenance: Thomas Philip, Earl de Gray (1781-1859; bookplate) – Alfred Edward Newton (1864-1940, American bibliophile; bookplate).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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SW1Y 6QT London
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01.10.2021 – 15.10.2021
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