Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill Michael Snodin

Horace Walpole (1717-1797), as the youngest son of the powerful Whig minister Robert Walpole, grew up at the centre of Georgian society and politics and circulated amongst the elite literary, aesthetic, and intellectual circles of his day. His brilliant letters and writings have made him the best-known commentator on the rich cultural life of eighteenth-century England. In his own day, he was most famous for his extraordinary collections of rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armour, and curiosities, all displayed at his pioneering Gothic Revival house at Strawberry Hill, on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham. This timely and groundbreaking study of the history and reception of Walpole's collection as it was formed and arranged at Strawberry Hill coincides with a planned restoration of this endangered house. Horace Walpole's "Strawberry Hill" assembles an international team of distinguished scholars to explore the ways in which Strawberry Hill and its collections engaged with the creation of various and interconnected political, national, dynastic, cultural, and imagined histories.

Michael Snodin is Senior Research Fellow in the Research Department, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

"This superb volume – part history book, part catalogue – firmly re-establishes Walpole as one of Britain’s great collectors, antiquarians and social historians. Sumptuously designed and meticulously researched, this impressive volume provides a fascinating insight into Walpole’s world and the rich cultural life enjoyed by gentleman collectors of the period. This is sure to have a shelf-life well beyond the exhibition which it supports."-Paula Hammond, Stamp and Coin Mart

"There is so much to enjoy in this beautifully produced volume."-The Good Book Guide

"An exceptionally valuable catalogue... Typical of Yale’s publications, the book is lavishly illustrated and beautifully produced….It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the wealth of information that this volume contains."—Matthew M. Reeve, The Antiquaries Journal

"Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, curated and edited by Michael Snodin and Cynthia Roman, beautifully showcases the impressive archival work of a team of specialists brought together by the Lewis Walpole Library, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum." Luisa Cale, European Romantic Review