Horace Walpole, was the third son of Sir Robert Walpole,
England's longest ruling Prime
Minister.
Inevitably, Horace attended Eton
and Cambridge, and took a seat in the Parliament in
1741.
This passionate democrat was firmly
opposed to the slave trade, and an ardent defender of
America.
In 1747 he acquired an estate in
Twickenham which he would call Strawberry Hill.
He dedicated his entire life to convert it
into a fantastic neo gothic castle, which inspired the
scenery of his most famous novel, The Castle Of Otranto,
published in 1765.
Besides his books, Horace
Walpole is the author of a huge amount of correspondence (
7,000 letters).
His letters, an historical
treasure, are relating various matters of his time, such as
the discovery of Uranus, a balloon crossing of the Channel,
prison reforms, improvements in surgery, Franklin's
experiments...
