Monk
Author(s): Matthew Lewis
'He now saw himself stained with the most loathed and monstrous sins, the object of universal execration ...doomed to perish in tortures the most severe'. Shocking, erotic and violent, "The Monk" is the story of Ambrosio, torn between his spiritual vows and the temptations of physical pleasure. His internal battle leads to sexual obsession, rape and murder, yet this book also contains knowing parody of its own excesses as well as social comedy. Written by Matthew Lewis when he was only nineteen, it was a ground-breaking novel in the Gothic Horror genre and spawned hundreds of imitators, drawn in by its mixture of bloodshed, sex and scandal. This is the Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.
General Information
- :
- : Penguin Books Ltd
- : Penguin Classics
- : 0.309
- : 01 June 2012
- : 198mm X 129mm X 19mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 August 2012
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Matthew Lewis
- : Paperback
- : 1
- : 448
More About The Product
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818) was educated at Oxford, after which he held a position in the British Embassy at The Hague. It was there that he wrote The Monk, under the influence of the early German romantics. Its publication in 1796 was highly controversial, due to both Lewis' new status as MP and the novel itself, which many critics savaged for its supposed profanity and obscenity. A masterpiece of Gothic fiction, The Monk was revised after first publication to avoid charges of blasphemy. This edition features the original, unrevised 1796 text.