Word Roots - Serendipity

Strawberry Hill House, Photo - Tony Hisgett, Birmingham, UK, Wiki Commons

Serendipity has long been one of my favourite words and researching its origin has felt like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole, each discovery only leading to another, even more bizarre.

The word was coined by Horace Walpole, in a letter in 1754. He was inspired by a Persian fairytale, The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes were ‘always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.’

‘Serendip’ means ‘Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island’ and is an old name for Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

Horace was the youngest son of our first Prime Minister, Robert Walpole. As well as inventing the word serendipity, he created some other firsts.

His obsession with all things medieval led to his tale, The Castle of Otranto. This is credited as the first Gothic novel, leading to a whole genre of literature which has been thrilling readers ever since. My favourites are Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. The Castle of Otranto was inspired by a nightmare in which Walpole saw a ghost with ‘a gigantic hand in armour.’ He had the dream at Strawberry Hill House, Twickenham – our last rabbit hole.

Walpole started building his fancifully named house in 1747 and added to it over decades. In architecture as in literature, he set in motion a Gothic trend that many would follow. Here he had a printing press, the Strawberry Hill Press, which supported his extensive literary output. His letters alone, including the serendipitous one, are collected in 48 volumes!

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