"Charles Robert Maturin: His Life and Works" by Niilo Idman. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) is a novel by Charles Maturin. Written toward the end of Maturin’s life, Melmoth the Wanderer was the author’s fifth and most successful novel. Inspired by the story of the Wandering Jew and the Faustian legend, the novel is a powerful Gothic romance divided into nested stories, each one delving deeper into the mystery of Melmoth’s life. Often interpreted for its criticisms of 19th century Britain and the Catholic Church, Melmoth the Wanderer is considered one of the greatest novels of the Romantic era. Following a lead from a story told at his uncle’s funeral, John Melmoth, a student from Dublin, begins an obsessive search into his family’s mysterious past. Little is known about the man called “Melmoth the Traveller.” A portrait dated 1646 suggests that he has been dead for over a century. Despite this, he discovers a manuscript from a stranger named Stanton who claims to have seen Melmoth on several occasions over the past few decades. John tracks him down and finds him at a mental institution, where he was placed when his obsession with Melmoth was deemed insanity. Disturbed, John burns the portrait and attempts to put his questions behind him. Soon, he begins having visions of his own. Melmoth the Wanderer is a story of mystery and terror that engages with timeless themes of faith, fantasy, and the thin line between dreams and life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.

Charles Robert Maturin's last novel, The Albigenses (1824), a historical romance of the early 13th century, is a rich tale of the conflict between the Catholic church and the Albigenses, a heretical sect centered in Languedoc. Its historical background does little to inhibit Maturin's strong penchant for extravagant scenes of violence, horror, and vivid evocations of nature at its least benign. His many characters people a well-plotted story of impressive density-the heroine, Genevieve, kind hearted, bold, true to her creed; the ruthless bishop of Toulouse; churchmen and women, of varying degrees of piety; maniacal harridans, formidable outlaws, and knights in armor. The Albigenses received, in general, better reviews than most of his other works, mainly because of its relatively reduced emphasis on blasphemous doings, but the reputation of Melmoth the Wanderer soon overshadowed it. This new edition of The Albigenses aspires to renew interest in the Irish master's final elaborate and engrossing tale.

Charles Robert Maturin's well-known novel, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), occupies a high-point in Gothic literature. Lurid, vivid, sacrilegious, paranoid, anti-Catholic, painfully tortuous and gleefully drawn out in its depictions of suffering, its title character tries to find victims miserable enough to take over his bargain with "the enemy of mankind." Maturin displayed his talents of "darkening the gloomy" by interweaving tales of Melmoth's intended victims: the Englishman Stanton, ensnared into an insane asylum; the Spaniard Moncada, trapped in monasteries and prisons of the Inquisition; Immalee, an innocent child of nature; Elinor, a Puritan maiden crossed in love, blighted by cruel deception. All are confronted with Melmoth's icy seductions. Maturin's uncanny aptitude for alternating vertiginous intensity with brooding melancholy and despair leads the reader to a dark side of the psyche where the heavy price paid for redemption often tests human fortitude and conviction beyond the limits of endurance."

When a young Dublin student goes to pay his last respects to his dying uncle, he never imagines that he might chance upon a terrifying family secret. Who is the sinister old man in the portrait and why is his uncle so anxious for him to burn it? Why is the Spanish man who saves him from drowning so frightened when he hears the name Melmoth? As he digs deeper into the mystery, an intricate and blood-chilling story begins to unfold. For the past two hundred years, the accursed Melmoth has been searching desperately for an escape from the infernal bargain he once made. Melmoth has traversed the globe leaving destruction and misery in his wake, from Inquisition-era Spain to a remote island in the Indian Ocean - and there have been recent sightings of him in County Wicklow, where our narrator is still piecing the story together. This Victorian classic has captured the imaginations of readers since 1820 and inspired numerous other gothic masterpieces, including Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Sarah Perry's novel Melmoth.