The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2

Word count: 7.2K words
Chapters: 1

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 1 by Horace WalpoleAuthor: Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Nov 1, 2003

Editor's review

Horace Walpole was an important eighteenth-century English letter writer and antiquarian, known for his keen observation and witty tone. His letters cover political observations, social-circle anecdotes, architectural interests, and book collecting. This volume, the first of his letters, sits between historical source and literature; its value lies not in continuous narrative but in the atmosphere of the age and the individual eye revealed in fragments. For readers studying eighteenth-century British society and culture, aristocratic sociability, or letter writing, it offers directly accessible primary material; for general readers, it is better for selective reading than for reading straight through. The Gutenberg edition is a public-domain English text without modern notes, so readers need some preparation regarding the people and events involved to appreciate its wit and density of information.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who study or enjoy eighteenth-century British history, politics, and social culture
Readers interested in epistolary literature, essayistic writing, and the observations of literary figures
Those who need public-domain English historical sources for topical reading or writing reference

Not a good fit for

General fiction readers hoping for a continuous plot or complete character stories
Beginners to originals who lack background knowledge and are unwilling to look up people and events

Reading tips

You need not read in order; browse the table of contents or read a few letters at random to get a feel for the tone, then decide on the scope of close reading.
While reading, mark the names and events that appear and consult brief reference works on eighteenth-century British history to understand them.
Treat the letters as historical fragments rather than a narrative work; read a few at a time and note your observations to avoid information overload.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I understand it without notes?

The letters involve many contemporary figures, political events, and social allusions, and the lack of notes raises the threshold of understanding. It is advisable to first acquire a basic framework of eighteenth-century British history, then look up key names and events as you read; do not insist on understanding every detail at once.

Is this book suitable for reading straight through?

Not very. The letters are scattered and independent of one another, and reading straight through can be tiring. A more effective approach is to select topics or periods that interest you and read each letter as an independent fragment, building an overall impression of the age and the author's eye.

What is the reading value of Walpole's letters?

Their value lies mainly in the observational perspective and the pleasure of the language: he records social observations, political gossip, and personal interests in a witty tone, letting readers sense the atmosphere of eighteenth-century British upper-class society through individual fragments. For writers, they are also a reference for epistolary and essayistic style.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797 Author

Horace Walpole (1717–1797) was an English writer, letter writer and antiquarian. Details of his life available on this site are limited, yet his surviving works are enough to show his literary standing. The site holds nineteen of his works, mainly the two-volume Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, the multi-volume collections Letters of Horace Walpole and The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, and the Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, included in Shorter Novels, Eighteenth Century. The Castle of Otranto is often regarded as a founding work of Gothic fiction, with its castle setting, supernatural atmosphere and intense emotion opening a narrative mode of lasting influence. His letters and memoirs are lively and closely observed, and remain valuable sources for the politics and society of eighteenth-century Britain. The site classifies his works under inspirational growth, for reference.