(WALPOLE, Horace.)

London, printed by Cooper and Graham, 1796. 8vo. xvi,+ 152 pp.+ 7 engr. plates with printed colours and gilt frames. Spotting, the first plate with paper repair in top margin with slight off-setting to the title page. Rebound full calf, contemporary boards with gilt frames and modern spine gilt with red label. From the library of Robert Ellis Cunliffe, with his book plate and with his gilt arms (a Greyhound dog) on the front board. Summers p. 264. The first ”Jeffery's Edition” of Walpole’s classical Gothic novel with ”...sophisticatedly executed color-printed plates and ornamental borders unique to each copy of the book. It is one of the monuments of English color printing at the end of the eighteenth century” (Sandro Jung). Re-issues was published in 1800, 1801 and 1804. ”The Castle of Otranto”, first published in 1764 is generally recognised as the first Gothic novel. It was published anonymously and claimed to be based on a sixteenth century manuscript from Naples.