Merritt, Percival, 1860-1932

Horatio Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford (1717-1797), was an English writer, politician, connoisseur, and collector. He was the youngest son of Sir Robert Walpole, British prime minister and leading Whig politician, and Catherine Shorter Walpole. He attended first Eton, and then King's College, Cambridge, and became good friends with the poet Thomas Gray. Between 1739 and 1741 Gray and Walpole embarked on a grand tour of Europe. Walpole was elected to Parliament in 1741 and served until 1767. In 1747 he acquired a home known as Strawberry Hill, located in Twickenham, where over the years he embellished the structure with cloisters, turrets, and battlements, and filled the interior with pictures, curios, and a valuable library. He established a private press on the grounds known as the Strawberry Hill Press. In 1791 he succeeded to the Earldom of Orford, and he died in 1797. Walpole was famous in his day for initiating the vogue for gothic romances with his medieval horror tale The Castle of Otranto. Today he is best known as one of the most prolific letter writers in the English language.

From the guide to the Percival Merritt collection of Horace Walpole manuscripts, 1751-1920., (Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University)

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