alpole wrote horror novels that tended more towards the psychological rather than supernatural, with a brooding underlying mysticism.
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (13 March 1884 - 1 June 1941) was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death. Walpole was determined to gain critical as well as financial success, and to be accepted as the equal of Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. In his early days, he received frequent and generally approving scrutiny from major literary figures. He became a protégé of Henry James, whose influence is discernible in The Duchess of Wrexe (1914) and The Green Mirror (1917). Virginia Woolf praised his gift for seizing on telling detail: "it is no disparagement to a writer to say that his gift is for the small things rather than for the large… If you are faithful with the details the large effects will grow inevitably out of those very details." Joseph Conrad said of him, "We see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic explorer of human nature."
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
edition.
Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (13 March 1884 - 1 June 1941) was an English novelist. A prolific writer, he published thirty-six novels, five volumes of short stories, two plays and three volumes of memoirs. His skill at scene-setting, his vivid plots, his high profile as a lecturer and his driving ambition brought him a large readership in the United Kingdom and North America. A best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s, his works have been neglected since his death. Walpole was determined to gain critical as well as financial success, and to be accepted as the equal of Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. In his early days, he received frequent and generally approving scrutiny from major literary figures. He became a protégé of Henry James, whose influence is discernible in The Duchess of Wrexe (1914) and The Green Mirror (1917). Virginia Woolf praised his gift for seizing on telling detail: "it is no disparagement to a writer to say that his gift is for the small things rather than for the large… If you are faithful with the details the large effects will grow inevitably out of those very details." Joseph Conrad said of him, "We see Mr. Walpole grappling with the truth of things spiritual and material with his characteristic earnestness, and we can discern the characteristics of this acute and sympathetic explorer of human nature."
