Hieroglyphic Tales

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

3.4

Word count: 64K words
Chapters: 7

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. Hieroglyphic Tales by Horace Walpole. Author: Walpole, Horace, 1717-1797. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Nov 20, 2004

Editor's review

Hieroglyphic Tales is a collection of whimsical short stories written in English by Horace Walpole. The "hieroglyphic" in the title does not refer to actual ancient Egyptian script but suggests an enigmatic, allegorical mode of narrative. Walpole was a founding figure of the eighteenth-century English Gothic novel, and this book continues his interest in Oriental imagination, supernatural elements, and satirical writing. The pieces are brief yet dense, often embedding mockery of the social manners and literary tastes of the day within a seemingly fairy-tale frame. The value of reading this work lies in how it reveals the experimental state of Gothic taste before it became fixed: narrative can leap at will, logic can be deliberately broken, and author and reader enter a game of riddle-solving. For readers familiar with eighteenth-century English literature, it is an intriguing piece of evidence for understanding the prehistory of the Gothic novel; for general readers, it is more like a set of verbal labyrinths that require slow, repeated reading. The public-domain electronic edition provided by Project Gutenberg is convenient for searching and comparative reading, making it a lightweight text suitable for research or casual reading.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in eighteenth-century English literature and the origins of the Gothic novel
Readers who enjoy allegorical short pieces and wordplay and do not require a complete plot
Students who need a public-domain English text as supplementary course reading
Literature enthusiasts who wish to experience satire and whimsy in short form

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting a coherent novel-length plot and character development
Beginners unfamiliar with eighteenth-century English syntax and allusions who need modern annotations
Readers who prefer realism and have no interest in supernatural or allegorical frameworks

Reading tips

Read one piece first to get a feel for the rhythm of the language; there is no need to finish all the pieces at once.
When you encounter an allusion or unfamiliar place name, skip it for the moment and look it up after finishing the piece.
You may read it alongside Walpole's The Castle of Otranto for comparative understanding of the Gothic background.
Treat each piece as an independent puzzle and ask yourself afterward what the author is satirizing.

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

Is this book an actual decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs?

No. "Hieroglyphic" in the title is a figurative expression, indicating that the stories have riddle-like, allegorical, and symbolically encoded narrative features; it has nothing to do with the study of ancient Egyptian writing. Readers need no knowledge of ancient scripts to read it.

Can I read this directly without having read other works by Walpole?

Yes. The pieces are relatively independent and do not depend on earlier plots. However, knowing Walpole's place in the history of the Gothic novel will make it easier to appreciate the whimsy and satire in the book; it is advisable to read an introduction or a brief author biography first.

How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for non-native readers?

The text is eighteenth-century English, with long sentences and many allusions, so non-native readers may need a dictionary and background annotations. It is advisable to choose an annotated edition, or first read a modern translation to grasp the general meaning before returning to the English original.

Comments

Find this book

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.