The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother
The Castle of Otranto and The Mysterious Mother

Author: Horace Walpole

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2003-01-02

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9781551113043

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This Broadview edition pairs the first Gothic novel with the first Gothic drama, both by Horace Walpole. Published on Christmas Eve, 1764, on Walpole’s private press at Strawberry Hill, his Gothicized country house, The Castle of Otranto became an instant and immediate classic of the Gothic genre as well as the prototype for Gothic fiction for the next two hundred years. Walpole’s brooding and intense drama, The Mysterious Mother, focuses on the protagonist’s angst over an act of incest with his mother, and includes the appearance of Father Benedict, Gothic literature’s first evil monk. Appendices in this edition include selections from Walpole’s letters, contemporary responses, and writings illustrating the aesthetic and intellectual climate of the period. Also included is Sir Walter Scott’s introduction to the 1811 edition of The Castle of Otranto.

Staging "the Mysterious Mother"
Staging

Author: Cynthia E. Roman

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2023-11-28

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 0300263651

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The first book-length study of Horace Walpole's scandalous The Mysterious Mother, including critical essays, an abridged script, and a facsimile edition Horace Walpole's five-act tragedy The Mysterious Mother (1768), a sensational tale of incest and intrigue, was initially circulated only among the author's friends. Walpole never permitted it to be performed during his lifetime except as a private theatrical. He described his play as a "delicious entertainment for the closet" and claimed that he "did not think it would do for the stage." Yet the essays in this volume trace a history of private readings, amateur theatricals, and even early public performances, demonstrating that the play was read and performed more than Walpole's protests suggest. Exploring a wide variety of topics--including the play's crypto-Catholicism, its treatments of incest, guilt, motherhood, orphans, and scientific spectacle, and the complex relations between print and performance--the essays demonstrate the rich relevance of The Mysterious Mother to current critical discussions. The volume includes the proceedings of a mini-conference hosted at Yale University in 2018 on the occasion of a staged reading of the play. Also included are the director's reflections, an abridged script, a facsimile of Walpole's own copy of the full-length play, and reproductions of the illustrations he commissioned from Lady Diana Beauclerk.

The Mysterious Mother. a Tragedy. by the Hon. Horace Walpole
The Mysterious Mother. a Tragedy. by the Hon. Horace Walpole

Author: HORACE. WALPOLE

Publisher: Gale Ecco, Print Editions

Published: 2018-04-23

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 9781385367001

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The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ Bodleian Library (Oxford) T153592 London: first printed at Strawberry-Hill, 1768. Re-printed for J. Roe, and sold by Ann Lemoine, 1796. 88p., plate; 12°