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About Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin
Melmoth the Wanderer is an 1820 Gothic novel by Irish playwright, novelist and clergyman Charles Robert Maturin. The novel's title character is a scholar who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life, and searches the world for someone who will take over the pact for him, in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew. The novel is composed of a series of nested stories-within-stories, gradually revealing the story of Melmoth's life. The novel offers social commentary on early-19th-century England, and denounces Roman Catholicism in favour of the virtues of Protestantism. Synopsis: John Melmoth, a student in Dublin, visits his dying uncle. He finds a portrait of a mysterious ancestor called "Melmoth"; the portrait is dated 1646. At his uncle's funeral, John is told an old family story about a stranger called Stanton who arrived looking for 'Melmoth the Traveller' decades earlier.A manuscript left by Stanton describes his first finding Melmoth laughing at the sight of two lovers who have been struck by lightning, and hearing of a wedding at which Melmoth was an uninvited guest: the bride died and the bridegroom went mad. Stanton's search for Melmoth is deemed to be madness and he is sent to a madhouse. Melmoth visits him there, and offers to free him, but Stanton refuses and escapes."synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Dublin native Charles Robert Maturin (1782 - 1824) was a clergyman whose novels were highly influenced by the Gothic romances of the late eighteenth century. After the initial success of a theatrical production of his tragedy Bertram, Maturin's works fell into obscurity until their reemergence in the 1890s.
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