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The Mysterious Mother: A Tragedy
The Mysterious A Tragedy is a play written by Horace Walpole and first published in 1791. The play revolves around the story of a mother who becomes pregnant with her own son and the tragic consequences that follow. The main character, Countess of Narbonne, is haunted by her past and the memory of her deceased husband. She becomes obsessed with her son, and their relationship becomes increasingly inappropriate. The play explores themes of incest, guilt, and the consequences of one's actions. It is considered one of the most controversial plays of the 18th century, and its subject matter was considered taboo at the time. The play was not well-received by critics and was banned from being performed for many years. However, it has since gained a cult following and is now regarded as a classic of Gothic literature.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1768
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169 people want to read
About the author
Horace Walpole
1,435 books288 followersHoratio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford — also known as Horace Walpole — was an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig politician. He is now largely remembered for Strawberry Hill, the home he built in Twickenham, south-west London where he revived the Gothic style some decades before his Victorian successors, and for his Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. Along with the book, his literary reputation rests on his Letters, which are of significant social and political interest. He was the son of Sir Robert Walpole, and cousin of Lord Nelson.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 26, 2025
The second work of Gothic fiction by Walpole: Important for some reasons, forgotten for others.
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, was among other a politician, art historian, intellectual, and antiquarian, but he is first and foremost known as Horace Walpole, the author of The Castle of Otranto and progenitor of the literary genre known as Gothic. It remains one of the most widely known novels of its ilk and one of few eighteenth century novels that still see a wide distribution in our day and age. Only a select few novels can show such staying power after two hundred and fifty years. It was and still is a massive success.
But his second Gothic literary output found no such favour. In 1768, four years after The Castle of Otranto, he published The Mysterious Mother through the Strawberry Hill Press, (a printing press supervised and operated by Horatio himself on his own estate.) It was a stage play which no one would set up,¹ and Walpole himself expressed the belief that given its subject matter, i.e. incest, the play would not be proper to stage at all.² It is easy to see why he might have expected the popular opinion to turn against it, but this seems to never have happened; instead it was largely ignored, leaving it without fame and infamy both. It did not receive much attention when released and it still remains largely unrecognised despite being penned by a name so central to the whole movement.
Yet, The Mysterious Mother was a true work of Gothic literature, one of the earliest ones, and even introduced one of the staples of the genre. The monks Benedict and Martin constitute the archetype of the evil clergy so often found within the Gothic,³ and their conversations remain some of its most memorable. Take these quotes as examples of their high villainy:
Benedict.
[...] My genius is command; art, but a tool
My groveling fortune forces me to use.
Oh! were I seated high as my ambition,
I’d place this naked foot on necks of monarchs,
And make them bow to creeds myself would laugh at. (p. 14)
Martin.
Fear not a reign so transient. Statesmen too
Will join to stem the torrent. or new follies
Replace the old. Each chieftain that attacks us
Must grow the pope of his own heresy.
E’en stern philosophy, if once triumphant,
Shall frame some jargon, and exact obedience
To metaphysic nonsense worse than ours.
The church is but a specious name for empire,
And will exist where even fools have fears.
Rome is no city, ‘tis the human heart;
And there suffice it if we plant our banners.
Each priest cannot command---and thence comes sects.
Obdurate Zeno and our great Ignatius
Are of one faith, and differ but for power. (pp. 72-73)
This first instance of the trope was apparently created out of necessity. In the postscript Walpole explains that he needed an antagonist to balance against the remaining characters, to have an evil to by comparison instil an image of goodness in them – as an aside, this literary device of using a villain to create such virtues-by-contrast is yet another staple of the Gothic, which was here used in a more obvious manner than in The Castle of Otranto.
The play contains just about every trait associated with the eighteenth century Gothic literary movement: It’s setting is a desolate castle during the Reformation (which constitutes the end of the era retroactively labelled as ‘the Gothic’), during Louis XII’s reign (1498 CE - 1515 CE). A supernatural presence seems to nudge the story along with its slight touch, slight enough that it is difficult to tell whether it is a result of something actually supernatural or merely of superstition. A virgin maiden, Adeliza, perfectly virtuous, is opposed by a male hero, Edmund, returned from exile and war, though there are no actual deeds of heroism during the tale itself. A tyrant is also found, in an unusually gentle form in the Countess, who has exiled her son under severe threats and forces every member of the castle to remain in a constant state of reverence and grief. – Or, at least these tropes are valid during the story’s introduction, but from early on it is made clear that there is much hidden under the well-maintained façades, and consequently much may change before the play comes to an end.
The Shakespearian influence on Walpole’s writings is obvious and strong, as those familiar with The Castle of Otranto can attest to, but that influence was nowhere as pervasive then as it is in The Mysterious Mother. In the postscript he talks about Shakespeare as one of the very few geniuses amongst dramatic writers, and seems to view those who have followed him as unsteady geniuses at best; Walpole’s style indicates that he chose to follow the footsteps of the greater genius. Fortunately, he has the appropriate mastery of the language to pursue it, and does leave the audience with numerous quotes whose eloquence adheres them to the mind – or, at least so concludes this reviewer. Take for instance the Countesses self-remonstrances on superstition as a particularly salient one:
Were ev’ry thunderbolt address’d to me,
Not one would miss me. Fate’s unerring hand
Darts not at random. Nor, as fractious children
Are chid by proxy, does it deal its wrath
On stocks and stones to frighten, not chastise us.
Omens and prodigies are but begotten
By guilt on pride. We know the doom we merit;
And self-importance makes us think all nature
Busied to warn us when that doom approaches.
Fie! fie! I blush to recollect my weakness. (p. 50)
These gems do shine brilliantly, but the story has its flaws and those are found between the gems. It is the case that to animate the minds of the audience their attention needs to be caught and held, and while the gems manage the former, the remainder of the text fails in the latter. At least this reviewer ended up caring more for the singular quotes than the story as a whole.
This review is based on Gale ECCO Print Editions facsimile of the original 1768 printing, which is a surprisingly unblemished replica; both the original book and the microfilm captions must be impeccable, the end product is without flaw, no text distorted nor missing, which makes it the very rare exception in that regard. Its sole flaw is that the pages five and six have been misplaced ahead of pages three and four, a flaw which should cause no trouble at all to the reader. There is also a free e-book version on Google Play which is a facsimile of the 1791 printing. It has a single-page introduction by Walpole expressing his regrets regarding the play, but the editions otherwise seem identical. Importantly, both retain a sense of history which is lost in modernised reproductions, and when reading something that has recently celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary a sense of its era is surely an enrichment of the experience.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Walpole claims that he based this play on a true family tragedy that bears many similarities to it – indeed this seems to be the reference he wished to make when he quoted Virgil on the title page: ”Sit mihi fas audita loqui!" which translates to ‘let me have permission to state what I’ve heard!’ What he heard was what he was told by an archbishop when he was young and it must surely have made a strong impression on him to inspire a book so many years later. Perhaps there is some truth to the Walpole family motto: ‘Fari sæ quentiat,’ which translates to ‘to speak what he feels,’ considering another statement which Walpole made in a letter to Ser Horace Mann in 1769: “I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.” The letter was sent but a year after he published The Mysterious Mother and it does not seem far fetched to presume that his general state of mind had not changed too much in the course of a year. It is plausible that what the tale stirred in him he attributed to feelings, so that to him the tale therefore needed to be a tragedy rather than an informative comedy. It is also possible that this emotional connection might be why he never revised it, like he promised to do, and only reluctantly allowed a wider printing of it. Evaluating the mindset of a man who has been dead for over two centuries is of course impossible to do with any sense of accuracy, and so these thoughts can likely be dismissed as fanciful correlations, but whether or not I am correct, at least part of the truth behind the lacking success of The Mysterious Mother is due to the unwillingness of its author.
1. To be precise, the play has been staged publicly, just not within Walpole’s lifetime. (He did allow it to be performed once as a private event, though.) It was performed ten times in May 1821 at The Surrey Theatre in London, then titled as Narbonne Castle: Or, The Mysterious Mother. Sixteen thousand people turned up to see it, which shows just how well people took to the idea. Yet, after that it seems to have been untouched (as far as this reviewer can tell) until 2001 when it was set up at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
2. A review of the 2001 performance (E. Mahoney, ‘Horace Walpole’s skeletons come out in Glasgow,’ in The Guardian) makes a valid point regarding this: Before The Mysterious Mother the tale of Œdipus had been dramatized as well as ’Tis a Pity She’s a Whore, both of which deal with the same subject in a very similar manner. Mahoney concludes that there are a few other flaws which are more likely culprits, such as the ”heavy, leaden and dramatically unsatisfying“ manuscript and its “stultifying blank verse.” It is also worth noting that the successful dramatization of 1821 had turned the script into a musical and cut two out of the five acts, presumably reducing its ‘heaviness’ and bringing an increased sense of animation to it. Walpole actually tried to recover his original print of fifty copies, promising a revised edition at a later time, but that edition never came.
3. The two are of course preceded by Father Jerome from The Castle of Otranto, who could to a degree be seen as a wrongdoer. But it must be argued that he is also a man of conscience even if his faith is nowhere strong enough for him to trust in it, but rather attempts to mediate Manfred’s tyrannical impulses through his gifted speech. He does deceive Manfred, but always to avoid greater harm. Labeling him as evil does seem far fetched.
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, was among other a politician, art historian, intellectual, and antiquarian, but he is first and foremost known as Horace Walpole, the author of The Castle of Otranto and progenitor of the literary genre known as Gothic. It remains one of the most widely known novels of its ilk and one of few eighteenth century novels that still see a wide distribution in our day and age. Only a select few novels can show such staying power after two hundred and fifty years. It was and still is a massive success.
But his second Gothic literary output found no such favour. In 1768, four years after The Castle of Otranto, he published The Mysterious Mother through the Strawberry Hill Press, (a printing press supervised and operated by Horatio himself on his own estate.) It was a stage play which no one would set up,¹ and Walpole himself expressed the belief that given its subject matter, i.e. incest, the play would not be proper to stage at all.² It is easy to see why he might have expected the popular opinion to turn against it, but this seems to never have happened; instead it was largely ignored, leaving it without fame and infamy both. It did not receive much attention when released and it still remains largely unrecognised despite being penned by a name so central to the whole movement.
Yet, The Mysterious Mother was a true work of Gothic literature, one of the earliest ones, and even introduced one of the staples of the genre. The monks Benedict and Martin constitute the archetype of the evil clergy so often found within the Gothic,³ and their conversations remain some of its most memorable. Take these quotes as examples of their high villainy:
Benedict.
[...] My genius is command; art, but a tool
My groveling fortune forces me to use.
Oh! were I seated high as my ambition,
I’d place this naked foot on necks of monarchs,
And make them bow to creeds myself would laugh at. (p. 14)
Martin.
Fear not a reign so transient. Statesmen too
Will join to stem the torrent. or new follies
Replace the old. Each chieftain that attacks us
Must grow the pope of his own heresy.
E’en stern philosophy, if once triumphant,
Shall frame some jargon, and exact obedience
To metaphysic nonsense worse than ours.
The church is but a specious name for empire,
And will exist where even fools have fears.
Rome is no city, ‘tis the human heart;
And there suffice it if we plant our banners.
Each priest cannot command---and thence comes sects.
Obdurate Zeno and our great Ignatius
Are of one faith, and differ but for power. (pp. 72-73)
This first instance of the trope was apparently created out of necessity. In the postscript Walpole explains that he needed an antagonist to balance against the remaining characters, to have an evil to by comparison instil an image of goodness in them – as an aside, this literary device of using a villain to create such virtues-by-contrast is yet another staple of the Gothic, which was here used in a more obvious manner than in The Castle of Otranto.
The play contains just about every trait associated with the eighteenth century Gothic literary movement: It’s setting is a desolate castle during the Reformation (which constitutes the end of the era retroactively labelled as ‘the Gothic’), during Louis XII’s reign (1498 CE - 1515 CE). A supernatural presence seems to nudge the story along with its slight touch, slight enough that it is difficult to tell whether it is a result of something actually supernatural or merely of superstition. A virgin maiden, Adeliza, perfectly virtuous, is opposed by a male hero, Edmund, returned from exile and war, though there are no actual deeds of heroism during the tale itself. A tyrant is also found, in an unusually gentle form in the Countess, who has exiled her son under severe threats and forces every member of the castle to remain in a constant state of reverence and grief. – Or, at least these tropes are valid during the story’s introduction, but from early on it is made clear that there is much hidden under the well-maintained façades, and consequently much may change before the play comes to an end.
The Shakespearian influence on Walpole’s writings is obvious and strong, as those familiar with The Castle of Otranto can attest to, but that influence was nowhere as pervasive then as it is in The Mysterious Mother. In the postscript he talks about Shakespeare as one of the very few geniuses amongst dramatic writers, and seems to view those who have followed him as unsteady geniuses at best; Walpole’s style indicates that he chose to follow the footsteps of the greater genius. Fortunately, he has the appropriate mastery of the language to pursue it, and does leave the audience with numerous quotes whose eloquence adheres them to the mind – or, at least so concludes this reviewer. Take for instance the Countesses self-remonstrances on superstition as a particularly salient one:
Were ev’ry thunderbolt address’d to me,
Not one would miss me. Fate’s unerring hand
Darts not at random. Nor, as fractious children
Are chid by proxy, does it deal its wrath
On stocks and stones to frighten, not chastise us.
Omens and prodigies are but begotten
By guilt on pride. We know the doom we merit;
And self-importance makes us think all nature
Busied to warn us when that doom approaches.
Fie! fie! I blush to recollect my weakness. (p. 50)
These gems do shine brilliantly, but the story has its flaws and those are found between the gems. It is the case that to animate the minds of the audience their attention needs to be caught and held, and while the gems manage the former, the remainder of the text fails in the latter. At least this reviewer ended up caring more for the singular quotes than the story as a whole.
This review is based on Gale ECCO Print Editions facsimile of the original 1768 printing, which is a surprisingly unblemished replica; both the original book and the microfilm captions must be impeccable, the end product is without flaw, no text distorted nor missing, which makes it the very rare exception in that regard. Its sole flaw is that the pages five and six have been misplaced ahead of pages three and four, a flaw which should cause no trouble at all to the reader. There is also a free e-book version on Google Play which is a facsimile of the 1791 printing. It has a single-page introduction by Walpole expressing his regrets regarding the play, but the editions otherwise seem identical. Importantly, both retain a sense of history which is lost in modernised reproductions, and when reading something that has recently celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary a sense of its era is surely an enrichment of the experience.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Walpole claims that he based this play on a true family tragedy that bears many similarities to it – indeed this seems to be the reference he wished to make when he quoted Virgil on the title page: ”Sit mihi fas audita loqui!" which translates to ‘let me have permission to state what I’ve heard!’ What he heard was what he was told by an archbishop when he was young and it must surely have made a strong impression on him to inspire a book so many years later. Perhaps there is some truth to the Walpole family motto: ‘Fari sæ quentiat,’ which translates to ‘to speak what he feels,’ considering another statement which Walpole made in a letter to Ser Horace Mann in 1769: “I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.” The letter was sent but a year after he published The Mysterious Mother and it does not seem far fetched to presume that his general state of mind had not changed too much in the course of a year. It is plausible that what the tale stirred in him he attributed to feelings, so that to him the tale therefore needed to be a tragedy rather than an informative comedy. It is also possible that this emotional connection might be why he never revised it, like he promised to do, and only reluctantly allowed a wider printing of it. Evaluating the mindset of a man who has been dead for over two centuries is of course impossible to do with any sense of accuracy, and so these thoughts can likely be dismissed as fanciful correlations, but whether or not I am correct, at least part of the truth behind the lacking success of The Mysterious Mother is due to the unwillingness of its author.
1. To be precise, the play has been staged publicly, just not within Walpole’s lifetime. (He did allow it to be performed once as a private event, though.) It was performed ten times in May 1821 at The Surrey Theatre in London, then titled as Narbonne Castle: Or, The Mysterious Mother. Sixteen thousand people turned up to see it, which shows just how well people took to the idea. Yet, after that it seems to have been untouched (as far as this reviewer can tell) until 2001 when it was set up at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
2. A review of the 2001 performance (E. Mahoney, ‘Horace Walpole’s skeletons come out in Glasgow,’ in The Guardian) makes a valid point regarding this: Before The Mysterious Mother the tale of Œdipus had been dramatized as well as ’Tis a Pity She’s a Whore, both of which deal with the same subject in a very similar manner. Mahoney concludes that there are a few other flaws which are more likely culprits, such as the ”heavy, leaden and dramatically unsatisfying“ manuscript and its “stultifying blank verse.” It is also worth noting that the successful dramatization of 1821 had turned the script into a musical and cut two out of the five acts, presumably reducing its ‘heaviness’ and bringing an increased sense of animation to it. Walpole actually tried to recover his original print of fifty copies, promising a revised edition at a later time, but that edition never came.
3. The two are of course preceded by Father Jerome from The Castle of Otranto, who could to a degree be seen as a wrongdoer. But it must be argued that he is also a man of conscience even if his faith is nowhere strong enough for him to trust in it, but rather attempts to mediate Manfred’s tyrannical impulses through his gifted speech. He does deceive Manfred, but always to avoid greater harm. Labeling him as evil does seem far fetched.
May 9, 2021
Finally a play I can read with my mother and sister.
Read
May 20, 2025apart from the obvious thematic concerns(?), this very much suffers from a tell-don't-show structure. also the language was annoying. grr. i feel like The Castle of Otranto would be much more exciting than this. (read in the context of closet dramas and written theatre not meant for performance)
May 20, 2025
I'm a bit sad that the edition I read gave away the twist in the introduction; I'm curious how quickly I would have picked up on it on my own.
Read
October 2, 2025??????? What the hell, sure
May 7, 2010
The Mysterious Mother is the second of Horace Walpole’s only two fictional works, and that is probably the only reason to read it. The play created quite a fuss when it appeared. Walpole, in the preface, says he is “sensible that the subject is disgusting”, Samuel Taylor Coleridge pompously announced “no one with a spark of true manliness, of which Horace Walpole had none, could have written it”, and Lord Byron (who had his own issues) loved it.
The “mystery”, in case it is not yet obvious, involves the kind of incest that Greek tragedians found so fascinating. The point for the story is that it sets our mysterious mother up for blackmail by a couple of crooked priests. Walpole has some harsh words for that clan.
The writing is highly variable. It starts as verse drama; dreadful stuff, it must be said. In fact, it is so bad that I almost wonder whether Walpole was trying to deter any innocents who happened upon the play without knowing its content. The writing does improve, at least enough to be readable if not playable, and the story is not bad.
The “mystery”, in case it is not yet obvious, involves the kind of incest that Greek tragedians found so fascinating. The point for the story is that it sets our mysterious mother up for blackmail by a couple of crooked priests. Walpole has some harsh words for that clan.
The writing is highly variable. It starts as verse drama; dreadful stuff, it must be said. In fact, it is so bad that I almost wonder whether Walpole was trying to deter any innocents who happened upon the play without knowing its content. The writing does improve, at least enough to be readable if not playable, and the story is not bad.
EDMUND. “Oh! if these lips that quiver
With dread of thy disdain, have force to move thee,
With nature's, duty’s, or affection's voice,
Feel how I print thy hand with burning zeal,
Tho’ tortur’d at this awful interval!
Art thou, or not, a mother?
--The Mysterious Mother, Horace Walpole (1791)
January 30, 2014
The 'mysterious mother' is right! As we were reading this out loud in the post-grad room, I will never forget the look on one student's face when she finally figured out the whole incestuous mess!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2015
I feel it's kinda of like Shakespeare but lacks the dynamism and exciting action that the master Shakespeare always gives us! But an interesting, disturbing Gothic play.
October 4, 2015
Extremely weird--curious to see how people would have reacted if this was ever staged??
October 3, 2024
3 stars!
If you thought Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto was convoluted and bonkers, I think this one takes the cake. I very much enjoyed reading this, however, the language used in this play was much harder to grasp versus what we saw in Castle of Otranto. I really enjoyed the plot and thought it was very interesting, it was just harder to read that I expected. The plot was amazing though and the only reason that it's only 3 stars instead of 4 was because of the language being a little more rough and hard to understand!
If you thought Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto was convoluted and bonkers, I think this one takes the cake. I very much enjoyed reading this, however, the language used in this play was much harder to grasp versus what we saw in Castle of Otranto. I really enjoyed the plot and thought it was very interesting, it was just harder to read that I expected. The plot was amazing though and the only reason that it's only 3 stars instead of 4 was because of the language being a little more rough and hard to understand!
October 15, 2024
The antiquated language is fun, but the plot is predictable and tries to carry itself on the taboo of incest in favor of anything interesting or complex.
October 27, 2024
Don’t bother with this one, just read Oedipus instead
September 24, 2024
Cursed
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews