Product Description

The main plot of the Gothic novel, 'The Monk', concerns Ambrosio, an abbot of irreproachable holiness, who is seduced by a woman disguised as a novice, and who goes on to sell his soul to the Devil. An extravagant blend of sex, death, politics, Satanism and poetry.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #215661 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 481 pages

Angela Wright, University of Sheffield
"an essential edition...full justice to the profound intertextuality of The Monk."

Ian Balfour, York University, Toronto
"a superb edition of a still stunning novel...the very helpful appendices will send readers in all the right directions."

From the Publisher
The Broadview Editions series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, lesser-known literature. Newly type-set and produced on high-quality paper in trade paperback format, the Broadview Editions series is a delight to handle as well as to read.

Each volume includes a full introduction, chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes along with a variety of documents from the period, giving readers a rich sense of the world from which the work emerged.

Customer Reviews

just awesome
Written by Matthew Lewis during a short period of ten short weeks when he was just nineteen, "The Monk" proved to be a controversial novel at the time that it was written. Faith, deception, loyalty, sorcery, murder, Satanism, incest, rape, ghosts, and the inquisition gave the novel the popularity it has retained until today. Even though its plot made the novel controversial when it was published in 1796 to the point where it as held to be blasphemous and resulted to censorship, Lewis nevertheless gained in popularity.
The story is basically about Ambrosio, who as an enfant was found at the doors of the abbey, stirring talks that he was a divine-sent child. He grew up to become an ostensibly pious and deeply revered Abbot of the Capuchin monastery in Madrid, a fit in holiness that aroused the resentment of the devil who decides to plot his fall. The devil plotted the fall through the working of a young female who disguised and became a novice under the tutelage of Ambrioso, the immaculate monk. Ambrioso's fall is plotted through out the later stages of the novel as his fight with the deep passions of his body, the machinations of the devil and his attempts at redemption. Anti-Catholic in nature, this Gothic classic is perhaps the best in its genre. I am certain the author enjoyed every moment while he was writing it because the story flowed all the way through to the end. A recommended classic.
Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, THE MYSTERIES OF UDOLPHO, DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE UNION MOUJIK