THREE GOTHIC NOVELS

HORACE WALPOLE (1717–97), fourth earl of Orford, was the son of Robert Walpole, twice Prime Minister of Britain. In 1747 he moved to Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, his ‘little Gothic castle’, where he was at the centre of a literary and political society and arbiter of taste. The Castle of Otranto was published anonymously in 1764 and launched the Gothic novel in England. Walpole is also remembered for his witty letters to a wide circle of friends.

WILLIAM BECKFORD (1759–1844) was the son of a Lord Mayor of London and at one time was known as ‘England’s wealthiest son’, with a fortune derived from the West Indies. He built Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire, a prime example of Gothic architecture, where he lived until scandal and extravagance forced him to sell. Vathek, originally written in French, was published in 1786.

MARY SHELLEY (1797–1851) was the daughter of the philosopher and writer William Godwin and of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In 1814 she eloped with the poet Shelley to the continent, marrying him on the death of his first wife. Frankenstein (1818) was written during a stay in Switzerland when she, Shelley and Byron each agreed to write a supernatural story.

MARIO PRAZ Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Rome until 1966. He wrote a great many books on literature, many of them in English. He died in 1982.

PETER FAIRCLOUGH graduated with an English degree from Durham University and teaches English in Lancashire. He has also edited Oliver Twist, Dombey and Son and The Last Chronicle of Barset for the Penguin Classics.