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The first book-length study of Horace Walpole’s scandalous The Mysterious Mother, including critical essays, an abridged script, and a facsimile edition Horace Walpole’s five-act tragedy The Mysterious Mother (1768), a sensational tale of incest and intrigue, was initially circulated only among the author’s friends. Walpole never permitted it to be performed during his lifetime except as a private theatrical. He described his play as a “delicious entertainment for the closet” and claimed that he “did not think it would do for the stage.” Yet the essays in this volume trace a history of private readings, amateur theatricals, and even early public performances, demonstrating that the play was read and performed more than Walpole’s protests suggest. Exploring a wide variety of topics—including the play’s crypto-Catholicism, its treatments of incest, guilt, motherhood, orphans, and scientific spectacle, and the complex relations between print and performance—the essays demonstrate the rich relevance of The Mysterious Mother to current critical discussions. The volume includes the proceedings of a mini-conference hosted at Yale University in 2018 on the occasion of a staged reading of the play. Also included are the director’s reflections, an abridged script, a facsimile of Walpole’s own copy of the full-length play, and reproductions of the illustrations he commissioned from Lady Diana Beauclerk.
This Broadview edition pairs the first Gothic novel with the first Gothic drama, both by Horace Walpole. Published on Christmas Eve, 1764, on Walpole’s private press at Strawberry Hill, his Gothicized country house, The Castle of Otranto became an instant and immediate classic of the Gothic genre as well as the prototype for Gothic fiction for the next two hundred years. Walpole’s brooding and intense drama, The Mysterious Mother, focuses on the protagonist’s angst over an act of incest with his mother, and includes the appearance of Father Benedict, Gothic literature’s first evil monk. Appendices in this edition include selections from Walpole’s letters, contemporary responses, and writings illustrating the aesthetic and intellectual climate of the period. Also included is Sir Walter Scott’s introduction to the 1811 edition of The Castle of Otranto.
Excerpt from The Mysterious Mother: A Tragedy Of fome night-haunted ruin, bore an afpeet Of horror, worn to habitude. 'he bade God blefs me and pafs'd on. _i urg d him farther Good mailer, cried he, go not to the callle There forrow ever dwells, and moping mifery. I prefs'd him'yet - None there, faid he, are welcome, But now and then a mals-prieli, and the poor, To whom the pious Countefs deals her alms, On covenant, that each revolvmg night They beg of heav'n the health of her fon's foul, And of hegggvn But often as returns The twentieth of September, they are bound Fall from the midnight watch to pray till morn, More would he not difclofe, or knew not more. -vvhat prec1ous mummely Her fon in exile, She wafies on mon s and beggars his inheritance, his foul's health I never knew a woman lov'd our bodies or our fouls too well. Each mafter-whim maintains its hour of empire, And obllinately faithful to its m, With equal ardor, equal 1mportunity, They teaze us to be damn'd, or to be fav'd. (i hate to love or pray too long.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.