Fatal Revenge; Or, the Family of Montorio (1807) is a novel by Charles Maturin. Published under the psueudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy, Fatal Revenge; Or, the Family of Montorio was Maturin’s debut novel. Largely ignored by critics and readers, it managed to draw attention from Sir Walter Scott, who supported Maturin’s efforts and encouraged him to pursue a career as a writer. Despite its humble beginnings, Fatal Revenge; Or, the Family of Montorio is considered a masterpiece of Gothic romance. “Their palaces were haunted by groups of monks, and magicians, and alchymists, and astrologers; and amid the most superstitious state of the country of superstition, the House of Montorio was distinguished by weak and gloomy credulity.” At the siege of Barcelona in 1697, two brothers of mysterious origin fight bravely and gain the respect of their fellow officers. When the fighting has ceased, they are counted among the dead. Gathering his subordinates, their commandant, “acquainted with their name, and their country, and their misfortunes,” begins to tell the story of their cursed family. Fatal Revenge; Or, the Family of Montorio is a story of mystery and terror that engages with timeless themes of loyalty, fantasy, and fate. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Charles Maturin’s Fatal Revenge; Or, the Family of Montorio is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.

Charles Robert Maturin's first novel, Fatal Revenge; or, The Family of Montorio, was published in 1807. Maturin's dark tale of the brothers Ippolito and Annibal Montorio is a complexly plotted adventure, full of "strong and vigorous fancy, with great command of language," according to Sir Walter Scott. Maturin's relish for the gothic and horrid, so brilliantly exploited in his masterpiece of 1820, Melmoth the Wanderer, here makes its first appearance, and the themes that haunted the later novel find their initial expression in Fatal Revenge. Maturin's unique talents of "darkening the gloomy, and of deepening the sad; of painting life in extremes, and representing those struggles of passion when the soul trembles on the verge of the unlawful and the unhallowed," make Fatal Revenge a compelling essay into the twilight world of the late gothic novel, one in which both innocence and evil are ultimately unable to triumph over the forces that overwhelm them.

An important and unique work about Gothic fiction, by"the major anthologist of supernatural and Gothic fiction", Montague Summers.

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