The Monk
`The Monk was so highly popular that it seemed to create an epoch in our literature', wrote Sir Walter Scott. Set in the sinister monastery of the Capuchins in Madrid, The Monk is a violent tale of ambition, murder, and incest. The great struggle between maintaining monastic vows and fulfilling personal ambitions leads its main character, the monk Ambrosio, to temptation and the breaking of his vows, then to sexual obsession and rape, and finally to murder in order to conceal his guilt. Inspired by German horror romanticism and the work of Ann Radcliffe, Lewis produced his masterpiece at the age of nineteen. It contains many typical Gothic elements - seduction in a monastery, lustful monks, evil Abbesses, bandits and beautiful heroines. But, as the Introduction to this new edition shows, Lewis also played with convention, ranging from gruesome realism to social comedy, and even parodied the genre in which he was writing. This book is intended for students of Gothic Literature and eighteenth-century literature.
What you might want to know about The Monk
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Ambrosio is the celebrated young abbot of a Capuchin monastery in late eighteenth-century Madrid, where crowds pack his sermons. After he discovers that the silent novice Rosario is in fact a young woman named Matilda who has loved him in disguise, his vows begin to come apart in private.
Yes. The Monk (1796) was a major scandal at publication for its sexual content, blasphemy, and violence. Matthew Lewis was 19 when he wrote it. The novel is widely cited as a foundational work of gothic horror.
Yes. The Monk was published in 1796 and is in the public domain. Free editions are available legally through Project Gutenberg.
The Monk was written by Matthew Lewis, published in 1796 by Cátedra.
The Monk is 445 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Monk takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
The Monk is a standalone novel by Matthew Lewis, not part of a series.
The Monk is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
