Book Review: Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole by Matthew M. Reeve

Recent restoration and refurbishment of Horace Walpole’s villa, Strawberry Hill, at Twickenham, along with the exhibition Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill (2018) offers up the opportunity to reimagine the house and its contents as it was lived in by its occupier. The reanimation of these original interiors also coincides with current reappraisals of the nature of Gothic Revival architecture and design, particularly that form of Gothic decoration that made such a strong impact on the applied arts of the eighteenth century. Matthew M. Reeve’s book Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle of Horace Walpole adds a further important and significant dimension to the history of design of this period. Beginning with the question ‘How and why did Horace Walpole and the men in his circle actively shape and promote the Gothic as a new style of art and architecture?’ (p. xi), Reeve’s book demonstrates the necessity of returning to Strawberry Hill as a ‘lived-in’ experience, providing the reader with an appealing and evocative walk-through of the interiors, their furnishings and decoration, and explaining how Walpole and his guests would have inhabited the various spaces, public and private