Horace Walpole

Born in London in 1717, Horace Walpole was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, Britain's first prime minister. He moved easily in political and fashionable circles, serving as a Whig politician, but he is remembered most warmly as a writer, art lover, and collector with a sharp eye for style and a gift for conversation on the page.

His most famous book, The Castle of Otranto (1764), is widely regarded as the first Gothic novel in English. Walpole also became celebrated for his enormous correspondence: his letters, full of wit, gossip, and observation, remain one of the great informal records of 18th-century British life.

Another lasting part of his legacy is Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, the fanciful villa he rebuilt in a Gothic style. It reflected his love of history, architecture, and theatrical detail, and it helped spark the Gothic Revival long before the Victorian age embraced it fully. He died in 1797, leaving behind a body of work that still links politics, literature, and imagination in a very distinctive way.