SOURCE: Preface to the Second Edition of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole, pp. 7-12. London: Oxford University Press, 1964.

In this preface, written in 1765, alpole explains his intentions in writing the book: "to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern."

The favourable manner in which this little piece has been received by the public, calls upon the author to explain the grounds on which he composed it. But before he opens those motives, it is fit that he should ask pardon of his readers for having offered his work to them under the borrowed personage of a translator. As diffidence of his own abilities, and the novelty of the attempt, were his sole inducements to assume that disguise, he flatters himself he shall appear excusable. He resigned his performance to the impartial judgment of the public; determined to let it perish in obscurity...