Matthew Gregory Lewis
Matthew Gregory Lewis was an English novelist, dramatist, poet, translator, and politician, born in London on 9 July 1775.
Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Lewis went on to work as a diplomat and also served as a politician. He was the owner of an estate in Jamaica, a role that occupied a notable part of his later life. His novel The Monk brought him such lasting public association with the work that he became widely referred to as "Monk" Lewis, a nickname that followed him throughout his career. He wrote in English and also worked as a translator, extending his literary output across multiple forms, including poetry and drama.
Lewis died on 14 May 1818 in the Atlantic Ocean. His career as a writer placed him firmly within the tradition of Gothic literature and the Gothic novel, and it is through this Gothic mode — spanning fiction, drama, and verse — that his body of work is situated and discussed.
Quotes by Matthew Gregory Lewis
It is not the Woman’s beauty that fills me with such enthusiasm; It is the Painter’s skill that I admire, it is the Divinity that I adore! Are not the passions dead in my bosom? Have.
Though still unconscious how extensive was its influence, He dreaded the melodious seduction of her voice.
In my veins while blood shall roll, Thou art mine! I am thine! Thine my body! Thine my soul!
Weep, Daughter, weep, and moisten your bread with your tears: God knows that you have ample cause for sorrow!
The critic Thomas-James Mathias, for instance, compared The Monk with John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure – ‘Another Cleland.
You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But.
I have no Friend in the world, and from the restlessness of my destiny I never can acquire one. Fain.
Even at this moment I lament his loss, though ’tis to him that I owe all the miseries of my existence.
She was wise enough to hold her tongue. As this is the only instance known of a Woman’s ever having done so, it was judged worthy to be recorded here.
