The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature: Revised and Enlarged by H. P. Lovecraft

Author:H. P. Lovecraft [Lovecraft, H. P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hippocampus Press
Published: 2013-07-02T21:00:00+00:00

III.The Early Gothic Novel

1 . "Ossian" was formerly thought to be an invention of the Scottish poet James Macpherson, but there is now evidence that he drew upon actual fragments of ancient Celtic poetry in such works as Fingal (1762) and Temora (1763).

2 . Hogg also wrote a weird novel, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a

Justified Sinner (1824), and a variety of weird short stories.

3 . The date on the first edition is 1765, but it was published on Christmas Day of 1764.

4 . For which see A. T. Hazen, A Bibliography of Horace Walpole (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), pp. 52f.

5 . Of which the earliest was Robert Jephson's The Count of Narbonne: A Tragedy (1781).

6 . See K. K. Mehrotra, Horace Walpole and the English Novel (1934).

7 . Other works of fantasy by Walpole are the play The Mysterious Mother (1768) and Hieroglyphic Tales (1785).

8 . "Have you read The Castle of Otranto itself? If not, don't! Let the summary [in Birkhead's The Tale of Terror] continue to give you a 'kick', for the original certainly won't! Walpole was too steeped in the classical tradition of the early 18th century to catch the Gothic spirit of the latter half. His choice of words and rhythm is the brisk, cheerful Addisonian one; and his nonchalant and atmosphereless way of describing the most prodigious horrors is enough to empty them of all their potency" (SL2.231).

9 . Used by HPL himself in varying degrees in "The Alchemist" (1908), "The Tomb" (1917), "The Picture in the House" (1920), "The Outsider" (1921), "The Hound" (1922), "The Lurking Fear" (1922), "The Rats in the Walls" (1923), "The Shunned House" (1924), "The Strange High House in the Mist" (1926), The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927), and "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932).

10 . Used in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

11 . Perhaps one of the sources for HPL's creation of such mythical books as the Necronomicon.

12 . Used in a masterly fashion in "The Rats in the Walls" (although there it may have been borrowed from Poe's "Metzengerstein" and other tales).

13 . For Walpole's remarks on "Sir Bertrand" see Walpole to William Mason, 8 April 1778 (Correspondence, Yale Ed., 28.382) and Walpole to Robert Jephson, 27 January 1780 (Correspondence, Yale Ed., 41.410). Walpole discusses The Old English Baron in the above two letters as well as in letters to William Cole, 17 August 1778 and 22 August 1778 (Correspondence, Yale Ed., II.107-10). In the letter to Jephson he remarks: "I cannot compliment the author of The Old English Baron, professedly written in imitation, but as a corrective of The Castle of Otranto. It was totally void of imagination and interest; had scarce any incidents; and though it condemned the marvellous, admitted a ghost—I suppose the author thought a tame ghost might come within the laws of probability."

14 . As Edmond, Orphan of the Castle (1799) by John Broster; published anonymously.

15 . Le Vieux Baron anglais, ou les revenants vengés, tr. M. d[e] l[a] P[lace] (Paris: Didot, 1787).

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