The Castle of Otranto

The Castle of Otranto

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace
Walpole (#1 in our series by Horace Walpole)
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Title: The Castle of Otranto
Author: Horace Walpole
Release Date: October, 1996 [EBook #696] [This file was first posted
on October 22, 1996] [Most recently updated: September 8, 2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE
CASTLE OF OTRANTO ***

Credit

Transcribed from the 1901 Cassell and Company edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

THE CASTLE OF OTRANTO

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The following work was found in the library of an ancient Catholic
family in the north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black
letter, in the year 1529. How much sooner it was written does not
appear. The principal incidents are such as were believed in the darkest
ages of Christianity; but the language and conduct have nothing that
savours of barbarism. The style is the purest Italian.
If the story was written near the time when it is supposed to have
happened, it must have been between 1095, the era of the first Crusade,
and 1243, the date of the last, or not long afterwards. There is no other
circumstance in the work that can lead us to guess at the period in
which the scene is laid: the names of the actors are evidently fictitious,
and probably disguised on purpose: yet the Spanish names of the

domestics seem to indicate that this work was not composed until the
establishment of the Arragonian Kings in Naples had made Spanish
appellations familiar in that country. The beauty of the diction, and the
zeal of the author (moderated, however, by singular judgment) concur
to make me think that the date of the composition was little antecedent
to that of the impression. Letters were then in their most flourishing
state in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of superstition, at
that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not unlikely that an
artful priest might endeavour to turn their own arms on the innovators,
and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm the
populace in their ancient errors and superstitions. If this was his view,
he has certainly acted with signal address. Such a work as the following
would enslave a hundred vulgar minds beyond half the books of
controversy that have been written from the days of Luther to the
present hour.
This solution of the author's motives is, however, offered as a mere
conjecture. Whatever his views were, or whatever effects the execution
of them might have, his work can only be laid before the public at
present as a matter of entertainment. Even as such, some apology for it
is necessary. Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams, and other
preternatural events, are exploded now even from romances. That was
not the case when our author wrote; much less when the story itself is
supposed to have happened. Belief in every kind of prodigy was so
established in those dark ages, that an author would not be faithful to
the manners of the times, who should omit all mention of them. He is
not bound to believe them himself, but he must represent his actors as
believing them.
If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing else
unworthy of his perusal. Allow the possibility of the facts, and all the
actors comport themselves as persons would do in their situation. There
is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary
descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe. Never is the
reader's attention relaxed. The rules of the drama are almost observed
throughout the conduct of the piece. The characters are well drawn, and
still better maintained. Terror, the author's principal engine, prevents

the story from ever languishing; and it is so often contrasted by pity,
that