The Monk

Matthew G. Lewis

Dec 2007 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

A pious monk is driven by sexual desire into the depths of sin and depravity in this eighteenth-century classic of Gothic fiction.

Ambrosio is the abbot of the Capuchin monastery in Madrid. He is beloved by his flock, and his renowned piety has earned him the nickname The Man of Holiness. Yet beneath the veneer of this religious man lies a heart of hypocrisy; arrogant, licentious, and vengeful, he follows his sexual desires down the torturous path to ruin. Along the way, he encounters a naïve virgin who falls prey to his scheming, a baleful beauty fluent in witchcraft, the ghostly Bleeding Nun, an evil prioress, the Wandering Jew, and Lucifer himself.

Matthew Lewis’s The Monk shocked and titillated readers with its graphic portrayal of lust, sin, and violence when it was first published in 1796. It was so controversial that the House of Commons—of which Lewis was a member—pronounced him licentious and perverse. A true classic of the Gothic novel, it left an indelible mark on English literature and has influenced such eminent writers as Byron, Scott, Poe, Flaubert, Hawthorne, Emily Brontë, and many others.

This edition of The Monk, set from the unexpurgated first edition, includes an introduction by John Berryman.

About the author

John Berryman's poetry has a depth and obscurity that discourages many readers while it entices critics. His major work, The Dream Songs (1969), forms a poetic notebook that captures the ephemera of mood and attitude of this most mercurial of poets. Born John Smith in McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1914 and educated at Columbia University and Clare College, Cambridge, he later taught at several universities. Berryman received the Shelley Memorial Award (1948), the Harriet Monroe Award (1957), the Loines Award for poetry of the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1964), and the fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (1966). In 1964 he won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for 77 Dream Songs (1964). His short story "The Imaginary Jew" received the Kenyon-Doubleday Award and was listed in Best American Short Stories, (1946). He also wrote Stephen Crane (1950) and is the author of a novel, Recovery (1973). Often listed along with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton as a major confessional poet, he was as much concerned with literary artifice as he was with personal revelation. His works include The Freedom of the Poet, Henry's Fate & Other Poems, 1967-1972, Collected Poems 1937-1971, Berryman's Shakespeare, and Selected Poems. Berryman committed suicide in 1972.