Melmoth the Wanderer (Penguin Classics)

by Charles Maturin (Author), Charles Maturin (Author), Victor Sage (Introduction)

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $14.92

  Created by an Irish clergyman, Melmoth is one of the most fiendish characters in literature. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth exchanges his soul for immortality. The story of his tortured wanderings through the centuries is pieced together through those who have been implored by Melmoth to take over his pact with the devil. Influenced by the Gothic romances of the late 18th century, Maturin's diabolic tale raised the genre to a new and macabre pitch. Its many admirers include Poe, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire.

• Used

  Paperback
  1989

  $7.98

  Written in 1820 by an eccentric Anglican curate in Dublin, this work brought the terrors of the Gothic novel to a new pitch of claustrophobic intensity. Its tormented villain, a Faustian transgressor desperately seeking a victim to release him from his fatal bargain with the devil, was regarded by Balzac as one of the great outcasts of modern literature. Maturin's bizarre narrative structure of interlinked tales allows the action of the novel to range from rural Ireland to an idyllic Indian island. The text is that of the first edition of 1820, and includes a new introduction and explanatory notes.