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Author : Horace Walpole
Title : The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story. Translated by William Marshal, from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas at Otranto, 
Publisher : London, J. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, 1782. Fourth Edition.
Language : Text in English
Size : 8 " X 6 "
Pages : XXIV, 200 pages
Binding : Very good and attractive  full leather binding (hinges scuffed but still very tight) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content : Very good content  (bright and tight, exlibris on first endpaper with the motto "Honesta audax" for Thomas Parkin, as well as the dedication of Lady Thomas to Augusta Smith, dated 1829.) 
 

Estimate: (USD 600 - USD 950)

The book : Very rare and attractive edition of the The Castle of Otranto -- a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole. It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – "A Gothic Story". The novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetics of the book shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture.
The novel initiated a literary genre which would become extremely popular in the later 18th and early 19th century, with authors such as Clara Reeve, Ann Radcliffe, William Thomas Beckford, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson and George du Maurier.

The author: Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as a whole, and he was one of the country's earliest practitioners of the short story. Poe is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre and is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.