romances
are but too liable. Should it meet with the success I hope for, I may be
encouraged to re-print the original Italian, though it will tend to depreciate
my own labour. Our language falls far short of the charms of the Italian, both
for variety and harmony. The latter is peculiarly excellent for simple
narrative. It is difficult in English to relate without falling too low or
rising too high; a fault obviously occasioned by the little care taken to speak
pure language in common conversation. Every Italian or Frenchman of any rank
piques himself on speaking his own tongue correctly and with choice. I cannot
flatter myself with having done justice to my author in this respect: his style
is as elegant as his conduct of the passions is masterly. It is pity that he did
not apply his talents to what they were evidently proper for, the theatre.
    I will detain the reader no longer but to make one short remark. Though the
machinery is invention, and the names of the actors imaginary, I cannot but
believe that the groundwork of the story is founded on truth. The scene is
undoubtedly laid in some real castle. The author seems frequently, without
design, to describe particular parts. The chamber, says he, on the right hand;
the door on the left hand; the distance from the chapel to Conrad's apartment:
these and other passages are strong presumptions that the author had some
certain building in his eye. Curious persons, who have leisure to employ in such
researches, may possibly discover in the Italian writers the foundation on which
our author has built. If a catastrophe, at all resembling that which he
describes, is believed to have given rise to this work, it will contribute to
interest the reader, and will make The Castle of Otranto a still more moving
story.
 

                         Preface to the Second Edition

The favourable manner in which this little piece has been received by the
public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which he composed it.
But before he opens those motives, it is fit that he should ask pardon of his
readers for having offered his work to them under the borrowed personage of a
translator. As diffidence of his own abilities, and the novelty of the attempt,
were his sole inducements to assume that disguise, he flatters himself he shall
appear excusable. He resigned his performance to the impartial judgment of the
public; determined to let it perish in obscurity, if disapproved; nor meaning to
avow such a trifle, unless better judges should pronounce that he might own it
without a blush.
    It was an attempt to blend