Horace Walpole

Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), also known as Horace Walpole, was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, south-west London, reviving the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors. His literary reputation rests on the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764), and his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. They have been published by Yale University Press in 48 volumes. He was the son of the first British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole. As Horace Walpole was childless, on his death his Baron Walpole barony descended to his cousin of the same surname, who was created the new Earl of Orford. 2Early life: 1717–1739 Walpole was born in London, the youngest son of British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his wife Catherine. Like his father, he received early education in Bexley; he was also educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. Walpole's first friends were probably his cousins Francis and Henry Conway, to whom Walpole became strongly attached, especially Henry. At Eton he formed with Charles Lyttelton and George Montagu the "Triumvirate", a schoolboy confederac