Matthew Lewis

For more information on Matthew Gregory Lewis, visit Britannica.com.

The English novelist and playwright Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), known as Monk Lewis, a popular writer during the early 19th century, is remembered today only as the author of a Gothic novel, "The Monk."

Matthew G. Lewis was born in London on July 9, 1775. His wealthy and influential father, who became England's deputy secretary at war, intended him for a diplomatic career. Lewis was sent to Westminster School at the age of 8 and to Christ Church, Oxford, at the age of 15. He spent the summer of 1791 in Paris and the fall and winter of 1792-1793 in Germany, where he learned to speak German fluently and met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. After Lewis received his bachelor of arts degree in 1794, he became an attaché to the British embassy at The Hague for 7 months. His mother, who had permanently separated from his father in 1791, had encouraged her son's desire to become a professional writer. From the age of 14 he had been "scribbling Novels and Plays."

In 1792 Lewis completed The East Indian and in 1794 The Twins, two plays that were performed several years later. More importantly, while in Holland, he wrote "in the space of ten weeks" Ambrosio, or the Monk, a Gothic novel of ghosts, murders, and ravished maidens. When the novel appeared in 1796, it was an immediate best seller. At the age of 20, "Monk" Lewis, as he was henceforth known, found himself famous and welcomed into high society. But a number of critics, led by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the Critical Review, attacked The Monk as blasphemous and obscene. As a result, Lewis never entirely escaped a reputation of being a licentious man.

From 1796 through 1802 Lewis served indifferently as a member of the House of Commons and continued to direct his energy into professional writing. From 1796 to 1812, 18 of his dramas were published or produced at London theaters. The first-produced and most successful was The Castle Spectre, a Gothic drama of ghosts, castles, and murders. Though none of these plays retains any interest today, they established Lewis as the leading popular playwright of his age.

Lewis was also busy with other literary activities. Between 1797 and 1806 he published translations of two German romances and two plays, the most important of which was Friedrich von Schiller's drama Kabale und Liebe.

In 1801 Lewis published Tales of Wonder, a collection of 60 poetic ballads of the supernatural, including 9 by Lewis and 5 by Walter Scott. Lewis also wrote a number of songs, many for inclusion in his plays. The best of these he published as Twelve Ballads in 1808. The last volume Lewis brought out was Poems, a small selection of his lyric poetry published in 1812. The death of Lewis's father in 1812 left him a rich man and ended his professional career.

On Jan. 1, 1816, Lewis landed in Jamaica to inspect and to improve the situation of the slaves on the large estates he had inherited there. In August of that year, he visited Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley in Geneva, where he translated Goethe's Faust aloud to Byron. Lewis spent the next 14 months traveling in Italy, then sailed again for Jamaica in November 1817. During the return voyage to England, he died of yellow fever on May 16, 1818, and was buried at sea. The posthumous publication of Lewis's Journal of a West Indian Proprietor in 1834 revealed, in its accurate and lively description of the real world, a new dimension of his talent.

Further Reading

The standard biography of Lewis was written by Mrs. Margaret Baron-Wilson but published anonymously as The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis (2 vols., 1839). It is detailed but contains inaccuracies sometimes designed to combat Lewis's reputation for immorality. These inaccuracies are corrected in Louis F. Peck's excellent modern study, A Life of Matthew G. Lewis (1961). Of special value are Peck's detailed discussions of Lewis's many publications.

English author commonly known as "Monk" Lewis. He was born in London July 9, 1775. His father, Matthew Lewis, was deputy secretary of war and proprietor of several valuable estates in Jamaica; his mother, Anna Maria Sewell, was devoted to music and various other arts. The future author showed precocity during childhood, and he attended Westminster School. During this period his parents separated, although Lewis remained friendly with both his parents. In 1791 he visited Paris and attempted a novel and a farce.

In 1792 he went to Weimar in Germany where he met Johann Goethe and also learned German thoroughly. Two years later he was appointed attaché to the British Embassy at the Hague, where he wrote his famous sensational story, Ambrosio; or, The Monk. Completed in ten weeks and published in 1795, it earned him his nickname of "Monk" Lewis.

In 1796 Lewis became a member of Parliament for Hindon in Wiltshire. Residing chiefly in or near London, he met most of the notable people of the day. Meanwhile his interest in the occult had been developing, and in 1798 his play Castle Spectre was staged at Drury Lane. Ghosts and the like played a prominent part in this popular production, for the public greatly enjoyed Gothic romances. In 1788 Lewis published Tales of Terror and in 1801 the volume Tales of Wonder, which anthologized popular occult verses, including some by novelist Sir Walter Scott.

When Lewis' father died in 1812, the author found himself a very rich man. His conscience was troubled, nevertheless, because the wealth derived from slave labor. Lewis sailed to Jamaica in 1815 to arrange for generous treatment of the workers on his estates. Returning to England in 1816, he went soon afterward to Geneva, where he met Lord Byron and Percy Shelley. Lewis made another visit to the West Indies in 1818 and died at sea May 14, 1818, while returning home.

The books of Lewis are memorable chiefly for the sensational way in which he exploited the rapidly developing public taste for gothic romance inaugurated by Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho appeared in April 1794, and Lewis was greatly impressed by it before publishing his own Ambrosio; or, The Monk only a few months later.

Sources:

Sullivan, Jack. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. New York: Viking, 1986.

Summers, Montague. The Gothic Quest. 1938. Reprint, London: Fortune Press, 1950.

Matthew Gregory Lewis, by Henry William Pickersgill, 1809

Matthew Gregory Lewis (9 July 1775 – 14 May 1818) was an English novelist and dramatist, often referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his classic Gothic novel, The Monk.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 3 See also 4 References 5 External links

Biography

Intended for a diplomatic career, Matthew Lewis spent most of his vacations abroad to study modern languages, and in 1794 went to the Hague as attaché to the British embassy. Although he only stayed a few months, it was there that he produced, in ten weeks, his romance Ambrosio, or the Monk, which was published in the summer of the following year. It immediately achieved celebrity for Lewis; but some passages in the work were of such a nature that about a year after its appearance, an injunction to restrain its sale (a rule nisi) was obtained. Lewis published a second edition from which he removed what he assumed were the objectionable passages, but the work retained much of its horrific character. Lord Byron in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers wrote of "Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard, who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard; Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper hell." The Marquis de Sade also praised Lewis in his essay "Reflections on the Novel".

Whatever its weaknesses, ethical or aesthetic, may have been, The Monk did not interfere with the reception of Lewis into the best society; he was favourably noticed at court, and almost as soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hindon in Wiltshire. After some years, during which he never addressed the House, he finally withdrew from a parliamentary career. His tastes lay wholly in the direction of literature, and his play The Castle Spectre (1796) enjoyed a long popularity on the stage. The Minister (a translation from Friedrich Schiller's Kabale und Liebe), Rolla (1797, a translation from August von Kotzebue), and numerous other operatic and tragic pieces, appeared in rapid succession. The Bravo of Venice, a romance translated from the German, was published in 1804; after The Monk it is his best known work. The death of his father left him with large fortune, and in 1815 he set off for the West Indies to visit his estates; in the course of this tour, which lasted four months, the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, published posthumously in 1833, was written. A second visit to Jamaica was undertaken in 1817, in the hope of becoming more familiar with, and able to ameliorate, the condition of the slave population; the fatigues to which he exposed himself in the tropical climate brought on a fever which resulted in his death during the homeward voyage. Lewis held two estates, Cornwall estate in Westmoreland and Hordley estate in St Thomas in the East. According to the slave registers Hordley was co-owned with George Scott and Matthew Henry Scott and their shares were purchased by Lewis in 1817.^[1]

Lewis visited Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley at Geneva, Switzerland in the summer of 1816 and recounted five ghost stories which Shelley recorded in his "Journal at Geneva (including ghost stories) and on return to England, 1816", beginning with the entry for August 18, which was published posthumously.

The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis, in two volumes, was published in 1839. The Effusions of Sensibility, his first novel, was never completed.

Works

• The Effusions of Sensibility (unfinished novel)
• The Monk (1796)
• The Castle Spectre (1796)
• Tales of Wonder (1801)
• The Bravo of Venice (1805)
• Romantic Tales (1808)
• Journal of a West Indian Proprietor (1833)
• The Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis (1839)

• "My Uncle’s Garret Window"

See also

• The Monk

References

1. ^ Copies of the Jamaican slave registers held by The National Archives are available on Ancestry. The registers show that in 1817 there were 285 slaves on the Cornwall estate and 282 on Hordley. See Your Archives (The National Archives' wiki) for further information about the slave registers.

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Matthew Lewis (writer)

• Online edition of The Monk
• Works by Matthew Gregory Lewis at Project Gutenberg
• Romantic tales, Vol. 1, Matthew Gregory Lewis, 1809, (M. & W. Ward, NY)

Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by James Wildman James Adams	Member of Parliament for Hindon 1796–1801 With: James Wildman	Succeeded by Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Parliament of Great Britain	Member of Parliament for Hindon 1801–1802 With: James Wildman	Succeeded by Thomas Wallace John Pedley

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