Melmoth the Wanderer: By Charles Robert Maturin - Illustrated - Softcover

Charles Robert Maturin

3.73

5,167 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1521944393 ISBN 13: 9781521944394

Publisher: Independently published, 2017

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

How is this book unique?

Font adjustments & biography included
Unabridged (100% Original content)
Illustrated

About Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Melmoth the Wanderer is an 1820 Gothic novel by Irish playwright, novelist and clergyman Charles Robert Maturin. The novel's title character is a scholar who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life, and searches the world for someone who will take over the pact for him, in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew. The novel is composed of a series of nested stories-within-stories, gradually revealing the story of Melmoth's life. The novel offers social commentary on early-19th-century England, and denounces Roman Catholicism in favour of the virtues of Protestantism. Synopsis: John Melmoth, a student in Dublin, visits his dying uncle. He finds a portrait of a mysterious ancestor called "Melmoth"; the portrait is dated 1646. At his uncle's funeral, John is told an old family story about a stranger called Stanton who arrived looking for 'Melmoth the Traveller' decades earlier.A manuscript left by Stanton describes his first finding Melmoth laughing at the sight of two lovers who have been struck by lightning, and hearing of a wedding at which Melmoth was an uninvited guest: the bride died and the bridegroom went mad. Stanton's search for Melmoth is deemed to be madness and he is sent to a madhouse. Melmoth visits him there, and offers to free him, but Stanton refuses and escapes.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover:

A student visits his dying uncle and upon noticing a centuries-old painting of a distant relative is told, "the original is still alive ... you shall see him again." Thus begins a tale of transformation, loneliness, and evil that centers on a Faustian bargain. Melmoth the Wanderer wins an extra 150 years of life but risks eternal hellfire unless he can find someone to take his place. With all the devil's powers at his command, he floats restlessly across oceans and continents, preying upon the innocent as well as the guilty, seeking out desperate and tortured souls and trying to shift the burden of his damnation.
Author Charles Maturin, an Irish clergyman, wrote Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820. His inventive and original tale is considered both the last of the great Gothic novels and the forerunner of a new school epitomized by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Bram Stoker. The book attracted a cult following that included Baudelaire and Balzac and was later characterized by H. P. Lovecraft as "an enormous stride in the evolution of the horror-tale," and cited by Thomas M. Disch as a classic fantasy story. Narrated in a nested series of stories-within-a-story, this moody fable continues to enchant lovers of Gothic romance.
www.doverpublications.com

About the Author:

Dublin native Charles Robert Maturin (1782–1824) was a clergyman whose novels were highly influenced by the Gothic romances of the late eighteenth century. After the initial success of a theatrical production of his tragedy Bertram, Maturin's works fell into obscurity until their reemergence in the 1890s.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.