Fun House Frolics; Richard Edmonds Is Delighted by an Insight into Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill Home

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Byline: Richard Edmonds

Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill Edited by Michael Snodin (Yale pounds 40) Horace Walpole (1717-97) flourished at the heart of the 18th century. Bitchy, witty, snobbish and above all else the prince of English letter-writers, Walpole emerges gradually but clearly through the several essays which make up this beautiful illustrated book set around Walpole's house at Strawberry Hill.

The house was a magnet for poets, writers, actors, artists, politicians and society figures who brought gossip and news down from London. Among them were the poet, Thomas Gray, whose celebrated work Elegy in a Country Churchyard, might never have been written or published without Walpole's encour-r …