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 (Description) 

Author: Horace Walpole.
Title: The Castle of Otranto, a Gothic Story.
Publisher: London, Joseph Thomas, 1840.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 8 " X 5 "
Pages: xvi-142 pages + (2) catalogue).
Binding: Very good original blind decorated full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn, soiled and scuffed - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content  (bright and tight, ex-libris on the first endpaper - as shown, some light foxing and staining - as shown).
Illustrations: Illustrated throughout with nice in-text vignettes from an unknown illustrator.
 
Estimate: (Uncommon illustrated edition with no or few other copies available worldwide).

The book: Scarce illustrated edition of 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 author: Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), also known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes.