• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 459 0

His gruesome play The Captive: A Scene in a Private Mad-House was performed at Covent Garden in 1803, followed by a reincarnation of The Minister as The Harper’s Daughter; or, Love and Ambition. Rugantino; or the Bravo of Venice, a translation, played to favorable audiences at Covent Garden in 1805. In April 1807, two dramas were produced at Drury Lane: The Wood Daemon; or, “The Clock Has Struck” (a scenic romance whose title was later changed to One O’Clock: or, the Knight and the Wood Daemon) and Adelgitha; or, The Fruits of a Single Error: A Tragedy, a historical play that was successful both in publication and on stage. Lewis’s translation of a terrifying French play involving monks and nuns, Venoni; or, The Novice of St. Mark’s: A Drama, was produced at Drury Lane in 1808. His elaborately staged Timour the Tartar; A Grand Romantic Melo-Drama in Two Acts was well liked by audiences in 1811. Much of his other writing during this period consisted of translations, rewrites, and ephemeral ballads.

The year 1812 marked a turning point for Lewis. His collection of sentimental poetry, simply titled Poems, was published then; he had resolved to give up fiction writing. That same year, the death of his father brought about major changes in his life. In particular, a large inheritance made Lewis, who advocated abolition, a wealthy owner of land and slaves in Jamaica and set the stage for his remaining years.

Lewis took his first journey to Jamaica in 1815 to inspect his estate, and during the two-month voyage, he began a journal that surveyed the land and people of the island. He stayed in Jamaica for more than a year before sailing back to England, at which time he completed a gothic poem, “The Isle of Devils.” He traveled farther on to Italy, where he socialized with family and literary friends Percy and Mary Shelley and Lord Byron. His concern for the treatment of his slaves, however, grew more intense, and Lewis returned to Jamaica in 1817 to set in motion a list of reforms. Lewis continued to keep his journal, a perceptive and lively account of his voyages and estate life, which he hoped to publish back in England. Sadly, he contracted yellow fever just before he set sail for home and died and was buried at sea on May 14, 1818. His memoir was finally published fifteen years later, as Journal of a West India Proprietor, Kept During a Residence in the Island of Jamaica. It was much praised.

Showcasing Lewis’s range in two vastly different styles, The Monk and the Journal are now considered his greatest contributions to literature—The Monk as a significant novel in the English gothic movement, and the Journal as an important social and humanitarian document.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

INTRODUCTION by Hugh Thomas

THE MONK

PREFACE

TABLE OF THE POETRY

ADVERTISEMENT

VOLUME I

chap. I

chap. II

chap. III

VOLUME II

chap. IV

chap. V

chap. VI

chap. VII

VOLUME III

chap. VIII

chap. IX

chap. X

chap. XI

chap. XII

NOTES

SUGGESTED READING

READING GROUP GUIDE

A NOTE ON THE TEXT

INTRODUCTION

Hugh Thomas

What an extraordinary book it is! The Monk is well written, it is salacious, it is passionate, it is exciting, it is violent, and it is often very amusing. I do not quite know what the purpose of the book is, but then, what actually is the purpose of Treasure Island? The novel captures one’s imagination. When I was reading it recently, I took it to church, thinking that there might be a moment when nothing was happening and I could see whether the hero might escape from that terrible cottage near Strasbourg where he and his attendants had been caught by murderers in the middle of the night. Lewis would, I think, have been amused by this scene.

There are two remarkable points about The Monk. The first is that its author was only nineteen years of age when he wrote it—an astounding achievement. The second is that he seems to have written it rather fast: in ten weeks. Its success was the making of its author, who ever afterward was known in London as “Monk Lewis.”

This success