The son of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Walpole was an aristocrat, antiquarian, and literary innovator. His faux-medieval novel The Castle of Otranto invented Gothic fiction, inspiring generations of writers with its haunted castles and doomed heirs. Walpole’s Strawberry Hill estate embodied his love for Gothic revival architecture. A prolific letter-writer, he documented 18th-century politics and culture, leaving a rich historical record.