
                                 Horace Walpole

                             The Castle of Otranto

                                    A Story

                                        

                      Translated by William Marshal, Gent.

   From the Original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, Canon of the Church of St.
                              Nicholas at Otranto

 ...Vanæ
 Fingentur species, tamen ut Pes &amp; Caput uni
 Reddantur formæ....
                                                                          Horace
 

                          Preface to the First Edition

The following work was found in the library of an ancient catholic family in the
north of England. It was printed at Naples, in the black letter, in the year
1529. How much sooner it was written does not appear. The principal incidents
are such as were believed in the darkest ages of christianity; but the language
and conduct have nothing that favours of barbarism. The style is the purest
Italian. If the story was written near the time when it is supposed to have
happened, it must have been between 1095, the æra of the first crusade, and
1243, the date of the last, or not long afterwards. There is no other
circumstance in the work that can lead us to guess at the period in which the
scene is laid: the names of the actors are evidently fictitious, and probably
disguised on purpose: yet the Spanish names of the domestics seem to indicate
that this work was not composed until the establishment of the Arragonian kings
in Naples had made Spanish appellations familiar in that country. The beauty of
the diction, and the zeal of the author, [moderated however by singular
judgment] concur to make me think that the date of the composition was little
antecedent to that of the impression. Letters were then in their most
flourishing state in Italy, and contributed to dispel the empire of
superstition, at that time so forcibly attacked by the reformers. It is not
unlikely that an artful priest might endeavour to turn their own arms on the
innovators; and might avail himself of his abilities as an author to confirm the
populace in their ancient errors and superstitions. If this was his view, he has
certainly acted with signal address. Such a work as the following would enslave
a hundred vulgar minds beyond half the books of controversy that have been
written from the days of Luther to the present hour.
    The solution of the author's motives is however offered as a mere
conjecture. Whatever his views were, or whatever effects the execution of them
might have, his work can only be laid before the public at present as a matter
of entertainment. Even as such, some apology for it is necessary. Miracles,
visions, necromancy, dreams, and other preternatural events, are exploded now
even from romances. That was not the case when our author wrote; much less
