M. G. Lewis – The Monk

[dem bones]

Matthew Gregory Lewis – The Monk (Cover and the following blurb from the Sphere Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult edition of 1975, but many a modern publisher have had a dabble in Lewis's diabolism including OUP, Dover, Penguin and NEL. Wordsworth Editions are intent on joining them!)

The Monk is one of the great classics of occult literature, combining a horrifying tale of lust, degradation and murder with a deeply felt comment on the state of the Catholic church. When it first appeared the novel so shocked the authorities that for many years it was banned.

The first ever Brit horror pulp? Probably not, but if you’re only going to read one Gothic novel, make sure it’s M. G. Lewis’s extraordinary romp. At the novel’s outset, Ambrosio is little short of a Saint on earth, but once he’s been seduced by novice Matilda – a demon in female guise – he embarks on a clandestine career that takes in murder, matricide, rape and incest and damns him to Hell. Meanwhile, a fine cast of Spectral, bleeding and pregnant Nuns, The Wandering Jew and the suitably grim agents of the Inquisition all play their part in keeping up the frantic pace right through to the terrifying climax. Incredibly, Lewis was just eighteen when he wrote this in 1797, having been influenced by the morbid fiction emanating from Germany and that other great, bloody Gothic, the Marquis de Sade’s Justine.

Essential.

[dem bones]

Haven't seen a copy yet, but according to the site, it's available as of now. Forget that it's now over 200 years old, The Monk is still one of the most enjoyable, horrible, downright depraved black magic novels ever written and a copy can be yours for a measly £2.99.

Matthew Lewis - The Monk (Wordsworth, 2009)

With an Introduction by Kathryn White.

Blurb:

Prepare to be shocked. This novel, written in 1796, is a Gothic festival of sex, magic and ghastly, ghostly violence rarely seen in literature.

The Monk is remarkably modern in style and tells a breathless tale of temptation, imprisonment and betrayal. Matthew Lewis recounts the downfall of Ambrosio, the holier-than-thou monk seduced within the walls of a Madrid abbey until he heads for the utter corruption of the soul.

Meanwhile, two sets of young lovers are thwarted and the reader thrills to pursuits through the woods by bandits and is chilled by the spectre of nuns imprisoned in vermin-ridden and skeleton-crowded vaults.

Late Eighteenth Century audiences were polarised in opinion as to the novel’s merits. Lord Byron and the Marquis de Sade were impressed by Lewis’s daring, while Coleridge warned parents against The Monk’s suitability for their sons or daughters, describing the novel as ‘poison for youth’.’

If you want a novel that still terrifies, over two hundred years after it was written, there is none finer than The Monk

[Craig Herbertson]

‘poison for youth’

Can there be a better incentive.

There use to be a lot of these kicking about in well thumbed 1890-1910 tyoe pocket editions. Should have grabbed them while they were there.

[dem bones]

There's also an Oxford University Press edition doing the rounds, introduced by Stephen King! once you get used to the idea, it seems kind of fitting in its way.

After his debut, Lewis continued writing horror plays and stories. None i've seen can quite live up to The Monk, but, in a moment of casual genius, he probably invented the whole When Animals Attack! genre when he tossed off suitably overwrought melodrama The Anaconda. Honest, it makes you wonder why everyone else didn't give up and go home!

[dem bones]

Picked this up today

M. G. Lewis - The Monk (Elek Bestseller Library, 1960)

Blurb:
This is the book which took the reading public by storm when it was first published in 1796 - and modem readers find it just as exciting today. One critic has called it `A mass of murder, outrage, diablerie and indecency'.

The monk, Ambrosio, of saintly reputation, is seduced by a young woman, Matilda, who has entered his monastery disguised as a boy and captured his interest. Once his vows are broken Ambrosio's fall is rapid. With the help of Matilda, who is in league with the Devil, he courts one of his penitents, but has to commit murder before his desires are satisfied. Then, in a panic, he kills his mistress to escape detection. But it is too late. The inquisition captures and tortures him. One last pact with the Devil seems to hold out hopes for his escape, but even Satan has deceived him.

Nov 19, 2009 9:51:45 GMT andydecker said:

If you compare this level of craft and art to today´s photoshop monstrosities - different worlds.

Andy was talking 'bout the recent batch Sev posted on his Covers with bird's arses on Down the back of the Vault thread, but surely it's equally applicable here. It actually looks like a book you'd want to read. And you'd be right.

[Dr Strange]

Trailer for film due out in April -

[dem bones]

At last.

Been hanging back from a rematch with The Monk until I could find a replacement copy of the edition I read and fell in love with (Books etc, Fenchurch Street. R.I.P.). Cover not the most lurid, but everything else about this OUP classic is sheer total Bookstacy.

M. G. Lewis - The Monk (Oxford University Press, 1981)

Cover illustration: detail from Abbey in an Oakwood by Caspar David Friedrich.

Blurb:
Edited with an Introduction by Howard Anderson

This book, written when its author was nineteen years old, is held to be one of the finest of the 'Gothic' novels which enjoyed great popularity in the eighteenth century. It is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest, set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid.

The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and the fulfilment of personal ambitions leads its main character, the monk Ambrosio, to temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt.

The mixture of the supernatural, the horrible, and the carnal, makes this book as sensational as when it was first published in 1796.