Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

Christina Morin (University of Limerick)

Ed. by Anne Markey, Dublin City University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.4: Irish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Anne Markey (Dublin City University), Ian Campbell Ross (Trinity College Dublin), Eoghan Smith (Carlow College), Sinéad Sturgeon (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1820

Places

Ireland, Republic of (Eire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Shortly after the publication of his fourth novel,

Women; or, Pour et Contre

(1818), the Anglo-Irish clergyman and author, Charles Robert Maturin, proposed an unnamed prose work to his publisher, Archibald Constable. Over the next two years, Maturin worked sporadically and unevenly on what would eventually be published as

Melmoth the Wanderer

in 1820. Throughout the troubled composition process, Maturin continually toyed with different narrative structures and literary genres, at one point suggesting a series of tales and, at another, a long poem interspersed with prose (Ragaz 363). The novel in its finished form consists of several nested tales linked together by the presence of the eponymous Wanderer. A combination of several common Gothic figures, including the Wandering Jew and the…

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2633 words

Citation: Morin, Christina. "Melmoth the Wanderer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 September 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3663, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

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