The Monk

'The Monk was so highly popular that it seemed to create an epoch in our literature', wrote Sir Walter Scott. Set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid, The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling 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. Inspired by German horror romanticism and the work of Ann Radcliffe, Lewis produced his masterpiece at the age of nineteen. It contains many typical Gothic elements - seduction in a monastery, lustful monks, evil Abbesses, bandits and beautiful heroines. But, as the Introduction to this new edition shows, Lewis also played with convention, ranging from gruesome realism to social comedy, and even parodied the genre in which he was writing.

ISBN 019953568X   Pages 496 ISBN13 9780199535682 (What's this?)   Volumes 000 Publisher Oxford University Press   Weight (grammes) 346 Imprint Oxford University Press   Published in Oxford Format Paperback   Series title Oxford World's Classics Publication date 17 Apr 2008   Previous ISBN 9780192833945 Writer of introduction McEvoy, Emma   Height (mm) 196 Library of Congress PR   Width (mm) 129 DEWEY 823.6   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General

'The Monk was so highly popular that it seemed to create an epoch in our literature.' Sir Walter Scott.

Blackwell review:
The pinnacle of melodramatic Gothic fiction. This has everything you could want from a gothic tale: sex, death, bandits and devilry. A wonderful dark and intriguing read. Hattie - Oxford Broad Street



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