![[WALPOLE, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford (1717-97)] The Castle of Otranto. Translated by William Marshal. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, London: for Tho. Lownds, 1765 [i.e. 1764].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/CSK/2001_CSK_09280_0091_000(040021).jpg?w=1)
Details
[WALPOLE, Horace, 4th Earl of Orford (1717-97)] The Castle of Otranto. Translated by William Marshal. From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, London: for Tho. Lownds, 1765 [i.e. 1764].
8° (178 x 114mm.) (Stitching of B2-7 weak, occasional light spotting), contemporary calf, red morocco lettering-piece, spine ruled in gilt, raised bands (rear joints cracked but cords still firmly holding, head and tail of spine chipped, part of lettering-piece torn away with loss of 3 letters, spine lightly worn, extremities rubbed).
FIRST EDITION of this mock tale of medieval horror which initiated the vogue for Gothic romances and furnished the machinery for a genre of fiction later transferred so successfully to cinema. "The assertion on the title-page that the story was written by Onuphrio Muralto is properly recorded as a literary hoax, not a forgery, since HW admitted his authorship as soon as the book succeeded. His disingenious preface to the first edition, in which he asserted that he, William Marshall, was translating from a rare Italian volume printed in 1529, was perhaps planned as a shield against the scoffing and scornful, and it has done little harm" (Hazen). Hazen Walpole, 17; Lowndes IV, 2820: "a very limited number of this edition were printed"; Summers A Gothic Bibliography, p. 208; Rothschild 2491.
8° (178 x 114mm.) (Stitching of B2-7 weak, occasional light spotting), contemporary calf, red morocco lettering-piece, spine ruled in gilt, raised bands (rear joints cracked but cords still firmly holding, head and tail of spine chipped, part of lettering-piece torn away with loss of 3 letters, spine lightly worn, extremities rubbed).
FIRST EDITION of this mock tale of medieval horror which initiated the vogue for Gothic romances and furnished the machinery for a genre of fiction later transferred so successfully to cinema. "The assertion on the title-page that the story was written by Onuphrio Muralto is properly recorded as a literary hoax, not a forgery, since HW admitted his authorship as soon as the book succeeded. His disingenious preface to the first edition, in which he asserted that he, William Marshall, was translating from a rare Italian volume printed in 1529, was perhaps planned as a shield against the scoffing and scornful, and it has done little harm" (Hazen). Hazen Walpole, 17; Lowndes IV, 2820: "a very limited number of this edition were printed"; Summers A Gothic Bibliography, p. 208; Rothschild 2491.
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