Reading Order
Melmoth the Wanderer Reading Order
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Robert Maturin is the last great Gothic novel of the Romantic period and, in many respects, the most complex — a vast, labyrinthine work of nested narratives (stories within stories within stories) organized around the figure of John Melmoth, an Irishman who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life and who has spent those years wandering the earth, offering release from suffering in exchange for the soul of whoever is willing to take his place. The novel is organized as a series of apparently separate tales — a Spanish monk under the Inquisition, an Indian orphan on a deserted island, a persecuted family in seventeenth-century Ireland — that are gradually revealed to be connected through Melmoth's appearances to each of the sufferers at their moment of extremity. The framing device (a young man, John Melmoth's descendant, reads these tales in a manuscript while the wanderer himself periodically appears) holds the whole together. Melmoth the Wanderer was enormously influential: Baudelaire admired it; Balzac wrote a sequel; and Oscar Wilde, on his release from prison, took the name 'Sebastian Melmoth.'
Where to start
Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) — the complete novel in the Oxford World's Classics edition (edited by Douglas Grant, with an introduction by Chris Baldick). Best Gothic novel reading order: The Castle of Otranto → The Mysteries of Udolpho → The Monk → Melmoth the Wanderer → Frankenstein.
Complete Melmoth the Wanderer Book List
- 1Buy
Melmoth the Wanderer
Charles Maturin·1820·The complete novel — John Melmoth, the Wanderer, and his offer. The Oxford World's Classics edition edited by Douglas Grant with an introduction by Chris Baldick is the standard modern edition - 2Buy
The Monk
Matthew Lewis·1796·Lewis's companion — the monk Ambrosio's pact with the Devil. The companion as the predecessor: Melmoth inherits from The Monk the supernatural compact, the demonic bargain, and the investigation of what a person will do when suffering is extreme enough — but develops the premise over an entire life and a structure of nested narratives rather than a single monk's fall - 3Buy
Frankenstein
Mary Shelley·1818·The companion — the creature and his creator. The companion as the contemporary realization of the same Romantic investigation: both Melmoth the Wanderer and Frankenstein are organized around the figure who has transgressed the boundary between the human and the supernatural/natural, and both investigate the catastrophic consequences of that transgression - 4Buy
The Castle of Otranto
Horace Walpole·1764·The companion predecessor. The companion as the origin of the Gothic tradition that Maturin brings to its most complex and ambitious expression: where Walpole established the conventions, Maturin uses them to build the most elaborate and philosophically complex Gothic structure in the tradition - 5Buy
The Wandering Jew
Eugène Sue·1844·Sue's companion — the Wandering Jew and the Wandering Woman across centuries. The companion as the French nineteenth-century version of the same figure: both Melmoth and the Wandering Jew are figures cursed to eternal wandering, both appear at moments of human extremity, and both are organized around the investigation of suffering and the limits of endurance - 6Buy
Vathek
William Beckford·1786·Beckford's companion — the Caliph Vathek's pursuit of supernatural knowledge. The companion as the Oriental Gothic version of the same investigation: both Vathek and Melmoth are organized around a figure who transgresses the moral and supernatural limits, and both end in supernatural punishment in the lowest halls of the demonic world - 7Buy
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde·1890·Wilde's companion — Dorian's portrait and his corruption. The companion as the aestheticist heir: Wilde, on his release from prison, took the name 'Sebastian Melmoth' in explicit homage to Maturin, and The Picture of Dorian Gray is the late Victorian investigation of the same supernatural compact (youth and beauty at the cost of the soul) that Maturin investigates in Melmoth the Wanderer - 8Buy
Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe·1808·Goethe's companion — the philosopher Faust's wager with Mephistopheles. The companion as the German investigation of the same Faustian bargain: both Faust and Melmoth are organized around the figure who has transgressed the limits of human knowledge and experience in exchange for supernatural power, and both investigate the question of redemption
Melmoth the Wanderer — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Melmoth the Wanderer about?
Melmoth the Wanderer is about John Melmoth, an Irishman from the seventeenth century who sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life and who wanders the earth offering release from suffering to those who are willing to take his place — to sign the same contract and assume his curse. The novel is organized as a series of nested narratives: a young Irishman (also named John Melmoth) visits his dying uncle and discovers a manuscript describing the Wanderer; the manuscript contains other manuscripts, other stories, other characters who were visited by Melmoth at moments of extremity. The stories include a Spanish monk under the Inquisition, an Indian orphan and an English castaway on a deserted island, and others; all are connected by Melmoth's appearances and offers. No one, in the end, accepts his offer, and Melmoth is finally claimed by the Devil at the novel's conclusion.
Why did Oscar Wilde call himself 'Sebastian Melmoth'?
Oscar Wilde took the name 'Sebastian Melmoth' after his release from Reading Gaol in 1897, using it for the rest of his life in Paris. 'Sebastian' refers to Saint Sebastian, the early Christian martyr who was shot with arrows — a figure Wilde identified with both his suffering in prison and his identity as a gay man in a society that criminalized him. 'Melmoth' refers directly to the wanderer in Maturin's novel: Maturin was Wilde's great-uncle, and Wilde had grown up with Melmoth the Wanderer as a family text; by taking the name of Maturin's cursed wanderer, Wilde was identifying himself with the figure who is condemned to wander outside the human community, who cannot return to the life he had before, and who carries his transgression with him wherever he goes. The name is both a tribute to his family's literary heritage and a statement of his condition: the man who cannot go home.
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