num_pages: 386
description: 'He now saw himself stained with the most loathed and monstrous sins, the object of universal execration ... doomed to perish in tortures the most severe'Shocking, erotic and violent, The Monk is the story of Ambrosio, torn between his spiritual vows and the temptations of physical pleasure. His internal battle leads to sexual obsession, rape and murder, yet this book also contains knowing parody of its own excesses as well as social comedy. Written by Matthew Lewis when he was only nineteen, it was a ground-breaking novel in the Gothic Horror genre and spawned hundreds of imitators, drawn in by its mixture of bloodshed, sex and scandal.
language: English
title: The Monk
titlecomplete: The Monk
characters: Lorenzo, Agnes, Matilda, Ambrosio, Raymond, Antonia Wyndham
genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, 18th Century, Fantasy, Horror, Gothic, Novels, British Literature, Literature, Classics
ratings_count: 27440
places: Madrid, Spain
publisher: Penguin Classics