The Monk: A Romance
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers interested in Gothic fiction and the horror tradition
- Readers who want to understand the character of late eighteenth-century English popular fiction
- Literary self-learners able to read English public-domain e-books
- Readers who like subjects of religion, desire, and moral conflict
Not a good fit for
- Readers who prefer light and bright reading experiences
- Readers resistant to religious subjects and moral preaching
- Beginners who need a modern annotated edition or a Chinese translation
Reading tips
- Read the first few chapters to feel the Gothic atmosphere, then read through as the plot advances, without looking up every word.
- While reading, record supernatural elements and the characters' moral changes to map the narrative threads.
- After finishing, compare it with a later Gothic work to compare atmosphere-building and thematic treatment.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Is this book suitable as an introduction to Gothic fiction?
Are there many horror descriptions in the book?
Is there a Chinese translation of this edition?
Comments
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About the author
Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818), often appearing in library catalogues as M. G. Lewis, was a British writer. Public information about him is limited and many details of his life cannot be verified, yet with just two surviving works he left a clear mark on Gothic fiction and travel writing. His representative work The Monk: A Romance is known for intertwining gloomy castles, religious asceticism, and supernatural terror; its bold subject matter caused controversy upon publication and has made it a much-discussed text in the history of the Gothic novel. The Journal of a West India Proprietor shifts to a documentary tone, recording observations from his estate abroad. One fictional and one factual, the two works together show an author skilled at building atmosphere and staging intense situations, with a certain influence on the later Gothic literary tradition.
