Walpole, Horace | The Mysterious Mother, a tragedy of familial betrayal

Walpole, Horace

The Mysterious Mother. A Tragedy. [Twickenham]: printed at Strawberry Hill, 1769 

8vo (179 x 112 mm). Title in red; few marginal repairs and tears most significant to the second gathering, small hole at p. 13, lightly foxed, handwritten notations in pencil with errata slip partially pasted to preliminary blank, slip offsetting into preceding blank. Original Green calf bound by Zaehnsdorf, spine in six compartments with raised bands, second and third labeled in gilt lettering, marbled endpapers, text block edges gilt; boards rubbed and worn at extremities and to bands, few scratches.

First edition of Walpole's tragedy of familial betrayal and incest.

After beginning the work on Christmas Day in 1766, Walpole published this play in 1769 in limited run of 50 copies at Strawberry Hill, of which this copy was one. In order to delay unauthorized reprints, Walpole arranged for a new edition of Mysterious Mother to be printed by Robert Dodsley in 1781.

In the author's postscript included in the 1791 edition, Walpole admits his keen awareness of the play's taboo nature: "From the time I first undertook the foregoing scenes, I never flattered myself that they would be proper to appear on the stage...I thought it would shock rather than give satisfaction to an audience. Still I found it so truly tragic in the essential springs of terror and pity, that I could not resist the impulse of adapting it."

REFERENCES

Hazen 14; Lowndes VII, 2821; Rothschild 2494; Walpole, Journal of the printing-office at Strawberry Hill, 51; Walpole, "the Author's Postscript", The Mysterious Mother (1791)