Prince Manfred was the lord of the Castle of Otranto. His wife was Hippolita, his son was Conrad, and his daughter was Matilda. In order to achieve a political alliance, Conrad was to marry Princess Isabella, the daughter of the marquis of Vicenza. Unfortunately, an extraordinarily large helmet fell upon Conrad, killing him. This object was an extreme enlargement of the helmet on a statue of Prince Alfonso the Good, an earlier ruler of Otranto, that was in the church of St. Nicholas, adjacent to the castle. Coincidentally, the actual helmet from the statue was discovered to be missing. After briefly grieving the loss of his son, Manfred decided that Conrad was a sickly, puny child and unworthy of the beauty of Isabella. Hippolita had given Manfred only the one son. So, Manfred decided that he would marry Isabella and that she would give him many sons. This was unacceptable to Isabella. She attempted to escape from the castle to take refuge in the adjacent church. Manfred chased her. Thus begins the novel The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole. As the story progresses, more characters are introduced, and, as they say, the plot thickens.
In some places, The Castle of Otranto is described as “the earliest and the most influential of the Gothic novels.” It has “a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests.” There are coincidences, misunderstandings, mistaken identities, and plot twists in the story. In a way, this book made me think of a Charles Dickens novel, Great Expectations, one of my favorite books of all time. Of course, the two books were written in different centuries, have different settings, and are written in different styles. However, the aforementioned revelations of identity, coincidences, and other features are in both books.
Reading The Castle of Otranto has its challenges. The style of writing is different from the style of writing in modern novels. Also, the dialog is not placed in quotations marks and placed on separate lines. Still, the book indicates who is saying what, with a few moments of confusion if you try to read too fast. If you read deliberately, if not slowly, you can follow the story clearly. After awhile, you don’t notice the unusual sentences. You hear everything in your head, as it is stated by the characters or the narrator, with complete understanding. I had to look up some words like orison and casque, but that didn’t happen often.
In chapter 1, Manfred insults people with the word “blockhead.” This is how Lucy insults Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comic strip. In the Oxford University Press World’s Classics edition, it says that it is from the text of 1798, the last that Walpole himself prepared for publication. It also states that this edition has been edited. However, I doubt that blockhead was inserted in place of some other word by the editor. Apparently, the word “blockhead” has a long history.
I didn’t read the Introduction before reading the novel. I was concerned that it would contain “spoilers.” And, with all the twists and turns of the story, you won’t enjoy reading it as much if you were told about them in advance. I will read the Introduction next. I did read the preface to the first edition and the preface to the second edition before reading the novel itself. I found it interesting that the first preface presents the book as a translation of an Italian book, and that the second preface notes that the claim of the book being a translation is false and apologizes for the deception. Although, I did find it relatively easy to read the novel’s style of writing, I did find it more difficult to read the prefaces. I will reread them now.
The Castle of Otranto is an important book in literature and an enjoyable book to read. I recommend it.
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