The Monk

«The Monk» belongs to novels known for their scandalous reputation—especially considering that when it was published, the author Matthew Gregory Lewis was only 19 years old and a member of the British Parliament. A novel completely unlike the works England had seen before its publication in 1796. Gloomy and unsettling, it radically changed Gothic literature with its dark tone and an open narrative about taboo subjects: witchcraft, sex, anti-clericalism, murders, incest, the excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, and satanism.

In addition to the parade of all kinds of perversions that passed before the reader’s eyes on the pages of «The Monk», it also contained anti-Christian reflections worthy of Nietzsche—like the idea that «even in the annals of a brothel it is hard to find a greater selection of indecent expressions than in the Holy Scriptures».