The Monk

Demon worship, imprisonment, illicit desire, rape. With such subject matter, it s little surprise that Matthew Gregory Lewis The Monk became a sensation as soon as it appeared in 1796. England s reading public found the book so compelling that it went through numerous editions within the first couple years of its publication. Today, Matthew Lewis is widely recognized as a central figure in the history of Gothic fiction. In The Monk, he uses the novel s twisting plots and supernatural machinery to expose the dangers of repressed desire, attack religious hypocrisy, and challenge late eighteenth-century definitions of virtue and propriety.