Horace Walpole

Horace or Horatio Walpole, 4th earl of Orford (24 September 1717 O.S. - 2 March 1797), was an English poet and prose author, and a prolific letter-writer.

Horace Walpole (1717-1797). Courtesy Austenonly.

The Right Honourable The Earl of Orford
Personal details
Born	Horatio Walpole September 24 1717(1717-Template:MONTHNUMBER-24) London, England
Died	March 2 1797(1797-Template:MONTHNUMBER-02) (aged 79) Berkeley Square, London, Great Britain
Resting place	St Martin's Church, Houghton, Norfolk
Residence	Strawberry Hill House, London
Alma mater	Eton College King's College, Cambridge
Occupation	art historian, antiquarian, politician

Life

Overview

Walpole, 3rd son of Sir Robert Walpole, the great minister of George II, was born in London, and educated at Eton and Cambridge, after which he travelled on the Continent with Gray, the poet. His father bestowed several lucrative appointments upon him, and he sat in Parliament for various places, but never took any prominent part in public business. By the death of his nephew, the 3rd earl, he became in 1791 4th earl of Orford. In 1747 he purchased the villa of Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, the conversion of which into a small Gothic castle and the collection of the works of art and curios with which it was decorated was the main interest of his subsequent life.

Lewis Walpole Library Lecture The Many Lives of Horace Walpole

His position in society gave him access to the best information on all contemporary subjects of interest, and he was as successful in collecting gossip as curios. He also erected a private press, from which various important works, including Gray's Bard, as well as his own writings, were issued. Among the latter are Letter from Xo Ho to his Friend Lien Chi at Pekin (1757); The Castle of Otranto, the forerunner of the romances of terror of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis; The Mysterious Mother (1768), a tragedy of considerable power, and many miscellaneous prose works; and above all his Letters, 2700 in number, vivacious, interesting, and often brilliant. Walpole never married.

Youth and education

Walpole was born at 17 Arlington Street, London, the 4th son of Sir Robert Walpole, 1st earl of Orford, by his first wife, Catherine (Shorter)., eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook, near Ashford in Kent. He was 11 years younger than the rest of his father's children. His godmother, he tells us, was his aunt, Dorothy Walpole, lady Townshend; his godfathers the Duke of Grafton and Sir Robert's younger brother, Horatio (afterwards Baron Walpole of Wolterton). It was probably in compliment to his uncle that he was christened Horatio; but, as he told Pinkerton , he disliked the name, and wrote himself "Horace" — "an English name for an Englishman."

He received his earliest education at Bexley in Kent, under the charge of a son of Stephen Weston (1665–1742), bishop of Exeter. But he spent much of his boyhood in his father's house "next the college" at Chelsea, a building now merged in the hospital. One of the salient events of his youthful days was his being taken, at his own request, to kiss the hand of George I, then (1 June 1727) preparing to set out on that last journey to Hanover on which he died. Of this Walpole gives an account in his Reminiscences of the Courts of George I and George II (Corresp. vol. i. pp. xciii, xciv; see also Walpoliana, p. 25).

On 26 April 1727 he went to Eton, where his tutor was Henry Bland, the headmaster's eldest son. From his own account his abilities were not remarkable. "I was a blockhead, and pushed up above my parts," he wrote to Conway (Corresp. i. 307). But there are other evidences that his powers were by no means contemptible. Among his schoolmates were his cousins, the two Conways — Henry Seymour (afterwards Marshal Conway), and his elder brother Francis Seymour Conway, lord Hertford — Charles Hanbury-Williams, and George Augustus Selwyn (1719–1791). Another contemporary and associate was William Cole (1714–1782), the antiquary. But his closest allies were George and Charles Montagu, the sons of Brigadier-general Edward Montagu, and these formed with Walpole what was known as the "Triumvirate."

A still more important group, which consisted of Walpole, Thomas Gray (afterwards the poet), Richard West, and Thomas Ashton (1716–1775), was styled the "Quadruple Alliance;" and this, which was a combination of a more literary and poetical character than the other, had not a little to do with Walpole's future character. The influence of Gray in particular, both upon his point of view and his method of expression, has never yet been sufficiently traced out.

While at Eton (27 May 1731) he was entered at Lincoln's Inn, but he never went there. He left Eton on 23 September 1734, proceeding, after an interval of residence in London, to his father's college, King's College, Cambridge, where he began in March 1735. At Cambridge he found several of the Eton set, including Cole and the Conways. West had gone to Oxford, but Gray and Ashton were at Cambridge, the one as a fellow-commoner at Peterhouse, the other at King's.

Of Walpole's university studies we know little but the names of his tutors, who included John Whaley. In civil law and anatomy he attended the lectures of Francis Dickins and William Battie respectively; his drawing-master was Bernard Lens, and his mathematical professor the blind Professor Saunderson, who appears to have told him frankly that he could never learn what he was trying to teach him (Correspondence ix. 467). In the classics his success was greater, but not remarkable, and he confessed to Pinkerton (Walpoliana, i. 105) that he never was a good Greek scholar. In French and Italian he was, however, fairly proficient, and already at Cambridge had made some literary essays, including a copy of verses in the Gratulatio Academiæ Cantabrigiensis of 1736 addressed to Frederick, prince of Wales, on his marriage with Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha.

On 20 August 1737 Lady Walpole died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey under a eulogistic epitaph composed by her youngest son. Soon after this his father appointed him inspector of imports and exports in the custom-house, a post which he subsequently resigned, in January 1738, on receiving that of usher of the exchequer. Later in the year he came into "two other little patent-places," a comptrollership of the pipe and clerkship of the estreats, which had been held for him by a substitute. These 3 offices must have then been worth about £1,200 a year, and were due of course to his father's interest as prime minister.

Grand Tour

Walpole on the Grand Tour. Portrait by Rosalba Carreira (1673-1757), circa 1741. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

He quit King's College in 1739, and at the end of March in that year left England in company with Gray on the regulation grand tour. Walpole was to be paymaster, but Gray was to be independent. They made a short stay in Paris and then went to Rheims, where they remained 3 months to improve themselves in the language. From Rheims they went to Dijon and Lyons, where, after an excursion to Geneva, Walpole found letters from his father telling him to go on to Italy.

Accordingly they crossed the Alps, travelling from Turin to Genoa, and ultimately, in the Christmas of 1739, entered Florence. Here they were welcomed by the English residents, and particularly by Mr.(afterwards Sir) Horace Mann, the British minister-plenipotentiary, a distant relative of Walpole, and subsequently one of his most favoured correspondents. With a brief interval they resided in the Casa Ambrosio, Mann's villa on the Arno, for 15 months. Walpole, when his first passion for antiquities had cooled, gave himself up to the pleasures of the place; Gray continued to take notes of statues and galleries and to copy music.

They paid a flying visit to Rome, but they remained at Florence until May 1741, when they began their homeward journey. At Reggio a misunderstanding arose, of which the cause is obscure, and they separated. On Gray's side this was never explained; but after his death Walpole took all the blame on himself (Corresp. v. 441; Walpoliana, i. 95). Shortly afterwards he fell ill of quinsy, which might have ended seriously but for the timely advent of Joseph Spence, who summoned a doctor from Florence. Upon his recovery Walpole returned to England, reaching Dover on 12 September 1741 (O.S.)

Early career

During his stay in Italy Walpole had addressed to his friend Ashton, now tutor to the earl of Plymouth, an Epistle from Florence in Dryden's manner; and he soon began to correspond regularly with Mann, to whom he had written a letter on his return journey. In his absence he had been returned member for Callington in Cornwall (14 May 1741).

He took up his residence initially with his father in Downing Street, and subsequently at 5 Arlington Street, to which house Sir Robert Walpole moved after his resignation and elevation to the peerage as Earl of Orford in 1742. 5 Arlington Street, now marked by a Society of Arts tablet, long continued to be his residence after his father's death, and here, with intervals of residence at Houghton, the family seat in Norfolk, he continued to live.

He hated Norfolk and the Norfolk scenery and products. But there were some compensations for endless doing the honors to uncongenial guests in Lord Orford's great mansion in the fens. The house had a wonderful gallery of pictures, brought together by years of judicious foraging in Italy and England, and far too distinctive in character to be allowed to pass, as it eventually did, into the hands of Catherine of Russia. This collection was to Walpole not only an object of enduring interest, but a prolongation of that education as a connoisseur which the grand tour had begun.

One of his cleverest jeux d'esprit, the "Sermon on Painting," was prompted by the Houghton gallery, and he occupied much of his time about 1742-3 in preparing, upon the model of the Ædes Barberini and Giustinianæ, an Ædes Walpolianæ, which, besides being something more than a mere catalogue, includes an excellent introduction. It was afterwards published in 1747, and is included in vol. ii. of the Works of 1798 (pp. 221–78).

Lord Orford died in March 1744-5, leaving his youngest son "the house in Arlington Street … £5,000 in money, and £1,000 a year from the collector's place in the custom house’ (Corresp. vol. i. p. lxiv). Any surplus of the last item was to be divided with his brother, Sir Edward Walpole. After this, the next notable thing in his uneventful career seems to have been the composition in 1746 of a prologue for Rowe's Tamerlane, which it was the custom to play on 4 and 5 November, being the anniversaries of King William's birth and landing at Torbay. The subject, as may be guessed, was the "suppression of the late rebellion" of 1745.

In the same year (1746) he contributed two papers to Nos. 2 and 5 of the ‘Museum,’ and wrote a bright little poem on some court ladies, entitled "The Beauties." In August he took a country residence at Windsor, and resumed his interrupted friendship with Gray, who had just completed his "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College."

Strawberry Hill

Walpole in his library. Drawing by Johann Heinrich Müntz, (1727-1798,circa 1755-1759. Courtesy Yale University..

In 1747 came what must be regarded as the great event of his life — his move to the neighbourhood of Twickenham. He took the remainder of the lease of a little house which stood on the left bank of the Thames at the corner of the upper road to Teddington. Even then it was not without a history. Originally the "country box" of a retired coachman of the Earl of Bradford, it had been subsequently occupied by Colley Cibber; by Dr. Talbot, bishop of Durham; by a son of the Duke of Chandos; and lastly by Mrs. Chenevix, the toywoman of Suffolk Street, sister to Pope's Mrs. Bertrand of Bath, who sublet it to Lord John Sackville. Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chenevix's lease, and by 1748 had grown so attached to the place that he obtained a special act to purchase the fee simple, for which he paid £1,356. 10s. In some old deeds he found the site described as Strawberry-Hill-Shot, and he accordingly gave the house its now historic name of Strawberry Hill.

Strawberry Hill and its development thenceforth remained for many years his chief occupation in life. Standing originally in some 5 acres, he speedily extended his territory by fresh purchases to 14 acres, which he assiduously planted and cultivated, until it "sprouted away like any chaste nymph in the Metamorphoses." Then he began gradually to enlarge and alter the structure itself.

STRAWBERRY HILL Horace Walpole's Gothic Castle

"I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill,’ he says inJanuary 1750 (Corresp. ii. 190). Accordingly, in 1753-4, he constructed a grand parlour or refectory with a library above it, and to these in 1760-1761 he added a picture gallery and cloister, a round-tower and a cabinet or tribune. A great north bedchamber followed in 1770, and other minor additions succeeded these. Having gothicised the place to his heart's content with battlements and arches and painted glass ("lean windows fattened with rich saints"), he proceeded, or rather continued, to stock it with all the objects most dear to the connoisseur and virtuoso, pictures and statues, books and engravings, enamels by Petitot and Zincke, miniatures by Cooper and the Olivers, old china, snuff-boxes, gems, coins, seal-rings, filigree, cut-paper, and nicknacks of all sorts, which gave it the aspect partly of a museum and partly of a curiosity shop.

Finally, after making a tentative catalogue in 1760 of the drawings and pictures in one of the rooms (the Holbein chamber), he printed in 1774 a quarto Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole … at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, with an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curiosities, &c. Fresh acquisitions obliged him to add several appendices to this, which was reprinted definitively in 1784, accompanied by engravings. In this form it was reproduced in his posthumous Works (ii. 393–516).

The catalogues of 1774 and 1784 were printed at his own Officina Arbuteana or private press at Strawberry. This he set on foot in July 1757, in a cottage near his house, taking for his sole manager and operator an Irish printer named William Robinson. His first issue was the Odes of Gray, which he set up for the Dodsleys in 1757. These in due course were followed by a number of works of varying importance, and a number of minor pieces, single sheets, labels, and so forth. All the earlier of these books were printed by his first printer, Robinson. But Robinson was dismissed in 1759, and, after an interval of occasional hands, was succeeded by Thomas Kirgate, who continued to perform his duties until Walpole's death.

Apart from the history of Strawberry and its press, Walpole's life from 1747, when he came to Twickenham, has little incident. In 17471749 his zeal for his father's memory involved him in some party pamphleteering, the interest of which has now evaporated. In the November of the last-mentioned year he was robbed in Hyde Park by the "gentleman highwayman," James Maclaine, and narrowly escaped being shot through the head (World, No. 103; Corresp. ii. 218–230).

In 1753 he contributed a number of papers to the World of the fabulist Edward Moore (1712–1757), one of which was a futile plea for that bankrupt Belisarius, Theodore of Corsica, to whom he subsequently erected a memorial tablet in St. Anne's churchyard, Soho; and in the same year he was instrumental in putting forth the famous edition of Gray's Poems, with the designs of the younger Bentley, the originals of which were long preserved at Strawberry.

Castle of Otranto

In 1754 he became M.P. for Castle Rising in Norfolk, a seat which he vacated 3 years later for that of Lynn. But his chief distraction, in addition to his house and press, was authorship. Walpole was, above all, a wit, a virtuoso, and a man of quality. As a politician he scarcely counts, and it is difficult to believe that, apart from the fortunes of his father and friends, he took any genuine interest in public affairs.

THE CASTLE of OTRANTO by Horace Walpole - FULL LENGTH AUDIOBOOK

His most important effort was issued in December 1764. This was the "Gothic romance" of ‘The Castle of Otranto,’ further described on its title-page as Translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the church of St. Nicholas at Otranto. The introduction gave a critical account of the supposed black-letter original, the existence of which at first seems to have been taken for granted, even by Gray at Cambridge.

Its success was considerable. In a second edition, which was speedily called for, Walpole dropped the mask and disclosed his intention in a clever preface. He had sought to blend the ancient and modern romance; to combine supernatural machinery and every-day characters. His account of the inception and progress of the idea as given to his friend Cole (Corresp. iv. 328) is extremely interesting; but his book is more interesting still, for he had hit upon a new vein in romance, a vein which was to be worked by a crowd of writers from Clara Reeve to Sir Walter Scott, and after. With the Castle of Otranto tentatively and inexpertly, but unmistakably, began the modern romantic revival.

In Paris

By the time the Castle of Otranto was in its 2nd edition, Walpole had carried out a long-cherished project and started for Paris. This he did in September 1765. He saw much of cultivated French society, especially its great ladies, of whom his letters contain vivacious accounts (cf. Corresp. iv. 465–73). But the most notable incident of this visit to France, and the pretext of later ones, was the friendship he formed with the blind and brilliant Madame du Deffand, then nearing 70, whose attraction to the mixture of independence, effeminacy, and real genius which made up Walpole's character speedily grew into a species of infatuation. He had no sooner quitted Paris than she wrote to him, and thenceforward until her death her letters, dictated to her faithful secretary, Wiart, continued, except when Walpole was actually visiting her (and she sometimes wrote to him even then), to reach him regularly.

He went to Paris to see her in 1767, and again in 1775. Her attachment lasted 5 years later, until 1780, when she died painlessly at 84. She left Walpole her manuscripts and her books. Many of her letters are included in the selection published in 1810, and 800 of the originals were sold at the Strawberry Hill sale of 1842. Walpole's own letters, which he had prevailed upon her to return to him, though extant in 1810, have not been printed; and those received subsequently to 1774, a few belonging to 1780 excepted, were burnt by her at Walpole's desire. Good Frenchman though he was, he no doubt felt apprehensive lest his compositions in a foreign tongue should, in a foreign land, fall into unsympathetic keeping.

One of his jeux d'esprit while at Paris in 1765 had been a mock letter from Frederick the Great to the self-tormentor Rousseau, offering him an asylum in his dominions. Touched up by Helvétius and others, this missive gave great delight to the anti-Rousseau party, and, passing to England, helped to embitter the well-known quarrel between Rousseau and David Hume (1711–1776).

Walpole & Chatterton

A few years later Walpole was himself the victim of spurious documents. In March 1769 Thomas Chatterton, then at Bristol, sent to him, as author of the Anecdotes of Painting, some fragments of prose and verse, hinting that he could supply others bearing on the subject of art in England. Walpole was drawn, and replied encouragingly. Chatterton rejoined by partly revealing his condition, and Walpole, consulting Gray and Mason, was advised that he was being imposed upon.

Private inquiries at Bath brought no satisfactory account of Chatterton, and he accordingly wrote him a fatherly letter of counsel, in which he added that doubts had been thrown upon the genuineness of the documents. He appears to have neglected or forgotten Chatterton's subsequent communications, until upon receipt of one more imperative than the rest (24 July), demanding the return of the papers, he snapped up both letters and poems in a pet, enclosed them in a cover without comment, and thought no more of the matter until Goldsmith told him at the Royal Academy dinner, a year and a half later, that Chatterton had destroyed himself — an announcement which seems to have filled him with genuine concern.

He might no doubt have acted more benevolently or more considerately. But he had been misled at the outset, and it is idle to make him responsible for Chatterton's untimely end because he failed to show himself an ideal patron. His own account of the circumstances, printed, as already stated, at his private press, is to be found in vol. iv. pp. 205–45 of his Works (see also Wilson's Chatterton, 1869).

Last years

In May 1767 he had resigned his seat in parliament, and in the following year produced two of his most ambitious works — the Historic Doubts on Richard the Third’ and the sombre and powerful but unpleasant tragedy of the Mysterious Mother, already mentioned as one of the issues from the Strawberry Hill press. From 1769, however, the year of his last communication to Chatterton, until his death some 28 years later, his life is comparatively barren of incident. It was passed pleasantly enough between his books and prints and correspondence, but, as he says himself, "will not do to relate." "Loo at Princess Amelie's [at Gunnersbury House], loo at Lady Hertford's, are the capital events of my history, and a Sunday alone, at Strawberry, my chief entertainment" (Corresp. vi. 287).

With being an author, he declared, he had done. Nevertheless, in 1773 he wrote a little fairy comedy called Nature will prevail, which five years later was acted at the Haymarket with considerable success. He also printed various occasional pieces at the Strawberry Hill press, the more important of which have been enumerated; and he added to Strawberry itself in 1776-1778 a special closet to contain a series of drawings in soot-water which his neighbour at Little Marble Hill, Lady Di Beauclerk, had made to illustrate the Mysterious Mother.

But the more notable events of his history between 1769 and 1797 are his succession in 1791 to the earldom of Orford at the death of the 3rd earl, his elder brother's son, and his friendship with two charming sisters, Agnes and Mary Berry, whose acquaintance he first made formally in 1789, nine years after the death of Madame du Deffand. Travelled, accomplished, extremely amiable, and a little French, their companionship became almost a necessity of his existence. In 1791 they established themselves with their father close to him in a house called Little Strawberry, which had formerly been occupied by an earlier friend, the actress Kitty Clive. It was even reported that rather than risk losing the solace of their society he would, at one time, have married the elder sister, Mary. But this was probably no more than a passing thought, begotten of vexation at some temporary separation.

His "two Straw-Berries," his "Amours," his "dear Both," as he playfully called them, continued to delight him with their company until his death, which took place at 40 (now 11) Berkeley Square, to which he had moved in October 1779 from Arlington Street. He left the sisters each £4,000 for their lives, together with Little Strawberry and its furniture. Strawberry Hill itself passed to Mrs. Damer, the daughter of his friend General Conway, together with £2,000 a year to keep it in repair. After living in it for some time she resigned it to the Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, in whom the remainder in fee was vested. It subsequently passed to George, seventh earl of Waldegrave, who sold its contents by auction in 1842.

Walpole's His critical taste was good, and as a connoisseur he would be rated far higher now than he was in those early Victorian days when the treasures of Strawberry were brought to the hammer, and the mirth of the Philistine was excited by the odd mingling of articles of real value with a good many trivial curiosities which, it is only fair to add, were often rather presents he had accepted than objects of art he had chosen himself.

Writing

As a literary man he was always, and professed to be, an amateur, but the Castle of Otranto, the Mysterious Mother, the World essays, the Historic Doubts, and the Anecdotes of Painting all show a literary capacity which only required some stronger stimulus than dilettantism to produce enduring results.

Of those published at Strawberry Hill from his own pen, the chief (in addition to the catalogues above mentioned) were A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England, 2 vols. 1758; Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose, 1758; Anecdotes of Painting in England (from Vertue's MSS.), 4 vols. 1762–1771 [1780]; A Catalogue of Engravers who have been born or resided in England, 1763; The Mysterious Mother, a Tragedy, 1768; Miscellaneous Antiquities, Nos. 1 and 2, 1772; A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton, 1779; Hieroglyphic Tales, 1785; Essay on Modern Gardening (with a French version by the Duc de Nivernais), 1785; and a translation of Voiture's Histoire d'Alcidalis et de Zelide, 1789. Besides these, he printed Hentzer's Journey into England, 1757; Whitworth's Account of Russia in 1710, 1758; Spence's Parallel (between Hill the tailor and the librarian Magliabecchi), 1758; Lord Cornbury's comedy of The Mistakes, 1758; Lucan's Pharsalia, with Bentley's notes, 1760; Countess Temple's Poems, 1764; The Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 1764; Hénault's Cornélie, 1768; Hoyland's Poems, 1769; Seven Original Letters of Edward VI, 1772; Grammont's Memoirs, 1772; Fitzpatrick's ‘Dorinda, a Town Eclogue,’ 1775; Lady Craven's comedy of ‘The Sleep-walker,’ 1778; Hannah More's Bishop Bonner's Ghost, 1789.

Most of his productions have been enumerated above. But a few either preceded the establishment of the press or were independent of it. One of the former class was a clever little skit, on the model of Montesquieu, entitled A Letter from Xo Ho, a Chinese Philosopher at London, to his Friend Lien Chi, at Peking, 1757, an effort which to some extent anticipated the famous Citizen of the World of Goldsmith.

Another jeu d'esprit, three years later, was The Parish Register of Twickenham,’ a list in octosyllabics of the local notables, afterwards included in vol. iv. of his ‘Works.’ To 1761 belongs "The Garland," a complimentary poem on George III, first published in the Quarterly for 1852 (No. CLXXX).

If his more serious efforts, however, generally stopped short at elegant facility, his personal qualities secured him exceptional excellence as a chroniqueur and letter-writer. The posthumous Memoirs of the reigns of George II and George III, published by Lord Holland and Sir Denis le Marchant in 1822 and 1845 respectively, the Journal of the Reign of George III (1771–83), published by Dr. Doran in 1859, and the Reminiscences written in 1788 for the Misses Berry, and first published in folio in 1805, in spite of some prejudice and bias, are not only important contributions to history, but contributions which contain many graphic portraits of his contemporaries.

It is as a letter-writer, however, that he attains his highest point. In the vast and still incomplete correspondence which occupies Mr. Peter Cunningham's 9 volumes (1857–1859), it is not too much to say that there is scarcely a dull page. In these epistles to Mann, to Montagu, to Mason, to Conway, to Lady Hervey, to Lady Ossory, to Hannah More, to the Misses Berry, and a host of others (see list in Corresp. vol. ix. p. xlvi), almost every element of wit and humour, variety and charm, is present. For gossip, anecdote, epigram, description, illustration, playfulness, pungency, novelty, surprise, there is nothing quite like them in English, and Byron did not overpraise them when he called them "incomparable."

Walpole's Works, edited by Mary Berry, under the name of her father, Robert Berry, were published in 1798 in 5 vols. 4to, with 150 illustrations. Of the Royal and Noble Authors an enlarged edition was prepared by Thomas Park, in 5 vols. (London, 1806, 8vo). The standard edition of Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting was edited by Ralph N. Wornum in 1849 (3 vols.). The Memoirs of the Reign of George III were re-edited by Mr. G.F. Russell Barker in 1894 (4 vols.). Peter Cunningham's collected edition of Walpole's Letters (1857–9, 9 vols.) embodied many separately published volumes of his correspondence with respectively George Montagu (London, 1818, 8vo), William Cole (1818, 4to), Sir Horace Mann (1833, 8vo, and 1843–4, 8vo), with the Misses Berry (1840), with the Countess of Ossory (1848), and with William Mason (1850), besides his Private Correspondence (1820, 4 vols.).

Recognition

3 of Walpole's poems were included in Dodsley's Collection of Poems in Four Volumes; by several hands; and a further poem in Mendez's Collection of Poems in Four Volumes; by several hands]].

Of Walpole's person and character a good contemporary account is given in Pinkerton's Walpoliana (vol. i. pp. xl–xlv) and the Anecdotes, &c., of L. Hawkins (1822, 105-106).

There are many portraits of him, the most interesting of which are by J.G. Eckhardt and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The former, which hung in the blue bedchamber at Strawberry Hill, represents him in manhood; the other in old age. There are also likenesses by Müntz, Hone (National Portrait Gallery, London), Zincke, Hogarth (at age 10), Reynolds (1757), Rosalba, Falconet, Dance, and others.

The Walpole Society, named for Horace Walpole, was founded in 1911, to promote the study of the history of British art.

Publications

Poetry

• The Beauties: An epistle to Mr. Eckardt, the painter. London: M. Cooper, 1746.
• "The Garland" (1761), in The Quarterly CLXXX (1852).

• Fugitive Verses (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). New York: Oxford University Press / London: H. Milford, 1931.

Plays

• The Mysterious Mother: A tragedy. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill, 1768; London: J. Dodsley, 1781; Dublin: John Archer / William Jones / Richard White, 1791.

Novels

• A Letter from Xo Ho: A Chinese philosopher at London, to his friend Lien Chi at Peking. London: N. Middleton, 1757.
• The Castle of Otranto: A story. London: Thomas Lownds, 1764; Dublin: J. Hoey / P. Wilson / J. Exshaw / et al, 1765; London: William Bathoe / Thomas Lownds, 1765..

Short fiction

• An Account of the Giants Lately Discovered: In a letter to a friend in the country. London : F. Noble, 1766.
• The Hieroglyphic Tales of Hermes Trismegistus. London: Cypher, 1996.

Non-fiction

• The Lessons for the Day. London: W. Webb, 1742.
• The Evening Lessons. London: W. Webb, 1742.
• Aedes Walpolianae; or, A description of the collection of pictures at Houghton-Hall in Norfolk. London: privately published, 1747, 1752. 1767.
• A Letter to the Whigs. London: M. Cooper, 1747.
• A Second and Third Letter to the Whigs. London: M. Cooper, 1748.
• Three Letters to the Whigs. London: M. Cooper, 1748.
• The Original Speech of Sir W----m St----pe... Feb. 19, 1748. London: W. Webb, 1748; Dublin: Edward Bate, 1748.
• The Speech of Richard White-Liver. London: W. Webb, 1748.
• A Catalogue of the Royal and Noble Authors of England. (2 volumes), Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-hill, 1758; London: J. Graham / R. & J. Dodsley, 1758.
• A Dialogue between Two Great Ladies. London: M. Cooper, 1760.
• Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Holbein Chamber. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill, 1760.
• Anecdotes of Painting in England (adapted from ms. by George Vertue). (4 volumes), Twickenham, UK: Thomas Kirgate, at Strawberry-Hill, 1762, 1765, 1780; 3rd edition, London: J. Dodsley, 1782
  • (edited by Ralph N. Wornum). (3 volumes), London: H.G. Bohn, 1849; London: Chatto & Windus, 1876.
• A Catalogue of Engravers who Have Been Born or Resided in England. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill: 1763.
• The Opposition to the Late Minister Vindicated. London: W. Bathoe, 1763.
• A Counter-address to the Public. London : Printed for J. Almon, 1764.
• Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III. London: J. Dodsley, 1768; Dublin: G. Faulkner / A. Leathley / W. & W. Smith, 1768.
• A Reply to the Observations of the Rev. Dr. Milles. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill, 1770.
• A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole.Twickenham, UK: Thomas Kirgate, at Strawberry-Hill, 1774, 1786.
• A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton. Twickenham, UK: Thomas Kirgate, at Strawberry-Hill, 1779.
• History of the Modern Taste in Gardening. Twickenham, UK: Thomas Kirgate, at Strawberry-Hill, 1785
  • Horace Walpole, Gardenist: An edition of Walpole's History of the modern taste in gardening; with an estimate of Walpole's contribution to landscape architecture (edited by Isabel Wakelin Urban Chase). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943.
• Postscript to 'The Royal and noble authors'. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill, 1786.
• Memoires of the Last Ten Years of the Reign of George II. (2 volumes), London: John Murray, 1822; London: H. Colburn, 1843; New York: AMS Press, 1970
  • (edited by John Brooke). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
• Memoirs of George III. (4 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1845; Phildelphia: Lea, 1845
  • (edited by Derek Jarrett). New Haven, CT, & London: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Notes on the Poems of Alexander Pope. London: F. Harvey, 1876.

On Shakespeare

• Notes on Several Characters of Shakespeare (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). Farmington, CT: privately published, 1940.

Collected editions

• Fugitive Pieces in Verse and Prose. Twickenham, UK: Strawberry-Hill, 1758.
• Works (edited by Mary Berry). (5 volumes), London: G.G. & J. Robinson / J. Edwards, 1798; (9 volumes), London: G.G. & J. Robinson, 1798-1825.
• Walpoliana. (2 volumes), London: T. Bensley, for R. Phillips, 1799, 1804; Dublin: B. Smith, for Burnett / Wogan / Porter / Moore / et al, 1800.

Translated

• Bonaventure des Periers, The Magpie and her Brood: A fable. Twickenham, UK:Strawberry-hill, 1764.

Edited

• Philip Dormer Stanhope, Miscellaneous Works. (2 volumes), London: E. & C. Dilly, 1777.

Letters and journals

• Letters to George Montagu. London: Rodwell & Martin, 1818.
• Letters to Rev. William Cole, and others. London: Rodwell & Martin / Henry Colburn, 1818.
• Private Correspondence. (4 volumes), London: Rodwell & Martin, 1820.
• Letters to the Earl of Hertford. London: Charles Knight, 1825.
• Letters to Sir Horace Mann (edited by George Agar Ellis, Lord Dover). (3 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1833, 1843; New York: G. Dearborn, 1833.
• Correspondence with George Montagu, et al. London: Henry Colburn, 1837.
• Letters (edited by J. Wright). (6 volumes), 1840; Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1842.
• Correspondence of Horace Walpole and Rev. William Mason (edited by John Mitford). London: R. Bentley, 1851.
• Letters (edited by Peter Cunningham). (9 volumes), London: R. Bentley, 1857; London: Bohn, 1861; Edinburgh: John Grant, 1906. Volume 8
• Horace Walpole and His World: Selected passages from his letters (edited by L.B. Seeley). London: Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 1884.
• Letters (edited by Charles Duke Young). London: T.F. Unwin / New York: Putnam, 1890 / London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1898.
• Best Letters (edited by Anna Benneson McMahan). Chicaco: A.C. McClurg, 1890.
• Some Unpublished Letters (edited by Spencer Walpole). London & New York: Longmans Green, 1902.
• Letters (edited by Paget Jackson Toynbee & Mrs. Paget Toynbee). (16 volumes), Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1903-1905.
• Letters (edited by C.B. Lucas). London: George Newnes / New York: Scribner, 1904; London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1935.
• Select Letters (edited by Alice Drayton Greenwood). London: George Bell, 1914.
• Supplement to the Letters (edited by Paget Jackson Toynbee & Mrs. Paget Toynbee). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1918-1925.
• Journal of the Printing-office at Strawberry-Hill (edited by Paget Jackson Toynbee). London: Chiswick Press, for Constable / Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1923.
• Letters (edited by Dorothy M. Stuart). London: Harrap, 1926.
• Selected Letters (edited by William Hadley). London & Toronto: Dent / New York: Dutton, 1926.
• A Selection of Letters (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). New York & London: Harper & Bro., 1926.
• A Note Book. New York: W.E. Rudge, 1927.
• Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). (48 volumes), New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1937-1983.
• Letters (edited by Maurice Alderton Pink). London: Macmillan, 1938.
• Correspondence with Thomas Chatterton (et al) (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1951
• Letters (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). London: Folio Society, 1951.
• Correspondence with the Walpole Family (edited by Joseph W. Reed). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973.
• Selected Letters (edited by Wilmarth S. Lewis). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of British poets

References

•  Dobson, Henry Austin (1899) "Walpole, Horatio (1717-1797)" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 59 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 170-176  . Wikisource, Web, Dec. 30, 2016.

External links

Poems

• Horace Walpole in the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (4 poems}
• Horace, 4th Earl of Orford Walpole at Poetry Nook (15 poems)

Books

• Horace Walpole at Amazon.com

About

• Horace Walpole, 4th earl of Orford in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Horace Walpole at NNDB
• Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill at the V+A: the father of Gothick Literature and much more at Austenonly

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Walpole, Horatio (1717-1797)