He is mistreated by the monks, and his brother Juan arranges for him to escape with the help of a fellow monk, a parricide. He is saved from drowning by the sole survivor of the wreck, a Spaniard, Alonzo Monçada.Īlonzo Monçada tells his story ( The Tale of the Spaniard), in which his family confines him to a monastery. John tries to approach him, but slips and falls into the sea. He is visited by Melmoth in a dream, and later sees Melmoth laughing at a shipwreck. Melmoth visits him there, and offers to free him, but Stanton refuses and escapes.įollowing his uncle's wish, John burns the Melmoth portrait. Stanton's search for Melmoth is deemed to be madness and he is sent to a madhouse.

At his uncle's funeral, John is told an old family story about a stranger called Stanton, who arrived looking for 'Melmoth the Traveller' decades earlier.Ī manuscript left by Stanton describes his first finding Melmoth laughing at the sight of two lovers who have been struck by lightning, and hearing of a wedding at which Melmoth was an uninvited guest: the bride died and the bridegroom went mad. He finds a portrait of a mysterious ancestor called 'Melmoth' the portrait is dated 1646. John Melmoth, a student in Dublin, visits his dying uncle. The novel offers social commentary on early-19th-century England, and denounces Roman Catholicism in favour of the virtues of Protestantism. The novel is composed of a series of nested stories-within-stories, gradually revealing the story of Melmoth's life. The novel's titular character is a scholar who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life, and searches the world for someone who will take over the pact for him, in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew. Melmoth the Wanderer is an 1820 Gothic novel by Irish playwright, novelist and clergyman Charles Maturin.

Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin