From archive (archive)
Subject: THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole
From: ecl@cbnewsj.ATT.COM (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: 28 Nov 89 16:34:32 GMT




		   THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO by Horace Walpole
	       (in THREE GOTHIC NOVELS edited by E. F. Bleiler)
	       Dover, 1966 (1811c), ISBN 0-486-21232-7, $3.00.
		      A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		       Copyright 1989 Evelyn C. Leeper

     Every once in a while, I decide to dig out some older fantasy work and
read it.  Two years ago it was VARNEY THE VAMPIRE (1847) and THE VAMPYRE
(1819), last year it was WAGNER, THE WEHR-WOLF (1846), and earlier this year
it was VIKRAM AND THE VAMPIRE (an 1893 translation of a 1799 version of an
11th Century work).  Because of the titles, I was asked whether I had some
personal preference for the end of the alphabet.  So, perhaps in response to
that, I started reading THE ARABIAN NIGHTS (an on-going project) and THE
CASTLE OF OTRANTO.  It's probably good that I'm working on THE ARABIAN
NIGHTS, because THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO could easily lead one to flee back to
the end of the alphabet (which is, by the way, easy to do in this edition,
since the omnibus volume also includes THE VAMPYRE and VATHEK.)

     Walpole originally claimed this novel (novella, actually, with a word
count of approximately 38,000) was a translation of an Italian work and only
with the second edition did he reveal the truth.  It's full of evil princes,
virtuous maidens, religious hermits, and gigantic ghosts, yet in spite of
all that manages to be supremely dull.  This has been cited on occasion as a
classic that no one has read, and I think I understand why.  In some ways, I
found Sir Walter Scott's Introduction and Bleiler's prefatory remarks about
Walpole more interesting than the work itself, and while it may be that THE
CASTLE OF OTRANTO "has been called one of the half-dozen historically most
important novels in English" and "the founder of a school of fiction, the
so-called Gothic novel," I have to say that it has been far exceeded by its
imitators.

     I suppose now I'll head back to the end of the alphabet and VATHEK.

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 201-957-2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com