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  • Published: 15 April 2002
  • ISBN: 9780375759161
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $58.00

The Monk




First time this book has been published as a Penguin Classic

When Matthew Lewis’s The Monk was published in 1796, readers were shocked by this gripping and horrific novel. Lewis’s story, which drove the House of Commons—of which he was a member—to deem him licentious and perverse, follows the abbot Ambrosio as he is tempted into a world of incest, murder, and torture by a young girl who has concealed herself in his monastery disguised as a boy. As Ambrosio spirals into hell, the reader encounters an array of haunting characters: the innocent virgin, the Bleeding Nun, the Wandering Jew, an evil prioress, and Lucifer himself.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic, set from the unexpurgated first edition of 1796, brings to a new generation of readers a timeless classic of gothic fiction that has influenced writers from Byron and Emily Brontë to Poe and Hawthorne.

  • Published: 15 April 2002
  • ISBN: 9780375759161
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $58.00

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On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Matthew Lewis

Matthew Lewis was born on 9 July 1775 in London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He later worked as an attaché to the British Embassy in Holland and an MP. When he was nineteen years old he wrote The Monk, which was published in 1796 and became a huge popular success, leading to the author being nicknamed 'Monk Lewis'. Lewis also wrote plays, poetry, translations and a memoir. He died on 14 May 1818 on a voyage home from the estate he had inherited in Jamaica.