About the Author
Horace Walpole was the third son of the prominent statesman and Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole. Horace Walpole was himself a Member of Parliament from 1741 to 1768, yet he is remembered more for his legacy as a novelist, a builder, and an antiquarian. Walpole worshipped his father and attempted all his life to be worthy of his parent’s mighty fame. While Sir Robert amassed an invaluable art collection, Horace Walpole collected innumerable prints, miniatures, and drawings that soon established him as one of the most knowledgeable antiquarians of his time. While his father built a Palladian mansion of gigantic proportions, Walpole transformed a quaint country house, Strawberry Hill, into a trim “toy” castle whose hodgepodge medieval details made Gothic architecture fashionable with the upper class. Finally, while his father ruled as prime minister, Walpole sat in Parliament and indulged in vicarious dreams of power in promoting the political ambitions of one of his cousins, General Henry Conway.
