Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

First published: 1820

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Gothic

Time of plot: Early nineteenth century

Locale: Ireland

Principal characters

• John Melmoth, a young Irishman
• Melmoth the Wanderer, young Melmoth’s ill-starred ancestor
• Alonzo Moncada, a Spaniard shipwrecked in Ireland
• Young Melmoth’s Uncle,

The Story:

In the autumn of 1816, John Melmoth, a student at Trinity College, Dublin, leaves his school to visit an uncle, his only surviving relative, who is dying. Melmoth’s uncle is particularly glad to see his young nephew, for the old man is fearfully afraid of something that he has not revealed to anyone else. The uncle dies and leaves all of his money and property to the young Melmoth. A note at the end of the will tells Melmoth to destroy the hidden portrait of an earlier John Melmoth, a painting dated 1646, and also a packet of letters to be found in a secret drawer.

The day after his uncle’s death, young Melmoth makes inquiries to learn whether his uncle had been a man of superstitious nature. He is told that the uncle was not superstitious, but that in recent months, he had insisted that a strange man had appeared and disappeared around the manor house.

Young Melmoth destroys the portrait as the will requested, but he opens the packet of manuscript, which contains a strange story about the man whose portrait he destroyed. The document tells how the original John Melmoth had been seen many times after his reported death in Germany and had been written of by an Englishman named Stanton, who had met Melmoth the Wanderer in Spain. The Wanderer, apparently angered by Stanton’s curiosity, had prophesied that Stanton would be confined in Bedlam, although he is sane. The prediction having come true, the Wanderer appeared to Stanton in his misery and promised the miserable man his freedom if he would sell his soul to the devil. Stanton refused, and the Wanderer disappeared. Stanton wrote down his experiences and left the manuscript with the Melmoth family when he visited Ireland to discover more about the man who had tempted him.

After reading the manuscript, young Melmoth goes to bed. That night he also sees the Wanderer. His strange ancestor pays the young man a visit and, as proof of his appearance, leaves a bruise on young Melmoth’s wrist. The next night, a ship is wrecked on the Irish coast not far from the Melmoth estate. When young Melmoth and his retainers leave to help rescue the sailors, Melmoth sees the Wanderer high on a rock overlooking the ruined ship and hears him laugh derisively. Young Melmoth tries to ascend the rock but falls into the sea, from which he is rescued by Alonzo Moncada, a Spaniard who had escaped from the doomed ship. Young Melmoth and the Spaniard return to the manor house. A few days later, the Spaniard discloses that he, too, knew the Wanderer.

Moncada tells young Melmoth a series of stories about the activities of the Wanderer in Spain. The first story is about the Spaniard himself, who is an exile from his country, although he is descended from a noble family. Moncada had been born out of wedlock and thus cannot inherit the ducal title of his ancestors. As a means of getting him out of the way so that his presence will not tarnish the proud name of his house, his family destined him for a monastery. Moncada does not want to be a monk, but his wishes in the matter are ignored by his family, including his own mother.

After a few years, Moncada’s brother has a change of heart; he tries to secure the monk’s release from his vows and thereby calls down the hatred of the Church upon both Alonzo and himself. Failing to secure a release legally, the brother then arranges for Moncada’s escape. Monastery officials learn of the scheme, have the brother killed, and denounce Moncada to the Inquisition. While he lays in prison, Moncada is visited by Melmoth the Wanderer, who tempts him to secure release by selling his soul to Satan. Moncada refuses; he escapes later when the prison of the Inquisition burns.

Moncada finds refuge with an old Jewish doctor interested in the history of the Wanderer. From the doctor, Moncada learns the story of still another person whom the Wanderer has tempted. The doctor tells how Don Francisco di Aliaga, a Spanish nobleman, had lost his daughter in a shipwreck while she was still a baby. The child and her nurse, Moncada relates, were cast upon an unknown and uninhabited island. The nurse dies, but the baby grows up alone on the island to become a beautiful young woman. The Wanderer appears to her on several occasions, each time tempting her to sell her soul to Satan to gain knowledge of the world. Strangely enough, the young woman and the Wanderer fall in love. She refuses to marry him, however, under any auspices but those of the Church.

Soon afterward, the young woman is found and returned to her family in Spain. There the Wanderer sees her again. Their love is still great and, unknown to anyone, they are married in a Satanic ceremony. Meanwhile, the Wanderer is conscience-stricken by fears that he will bring sorrow to the one he loves; he appears to Don Aliaga and warns him, by stories of the Wanderer’s Satanic activities, of dangers surrounding the woman.

The Wanderer tells Don Aliaga of the temptation of a father whose children are starving, and of a young woman, during the reign of Charles II of England, who has been tempted to have the man she loves. In both cases, however, those tempted refused to pay the price of damnation in return for earthly happiness. Don Aliaga recognizes the meaning of these tales, but pressing business affairs keep him from acting at once.

When Don Aliaga finally returns to his home, he brings with him the young man he has selected to be his daughter’s husband. Unknown to her father, however, the woman is about to give birth to a child by the Wanderer. When the Wanderer appears to claim her at a masked ball, her connection with the accursed guest is revealed, and she is turned over to the Inquisition. She dies shortly after giving birth to her child, and her dying words are the wish that she and the Wanderer will enter Heaven.

Such is the tale the Jewish doctor tells to Moncada, who is escaping from Spain when he is shipwrecked on the Irish coast. The tale ends, and the Wanderer suddenly appears in the room with them. He tells his horrified listeners that he has returned to his ancestral home to end his earthly wanderings. His fate had been to roam the earth for 150 years after his death under a terrible command to win souls for the devil. Everyone he had tempted, however, had refused to exchange earthly happiness for eternal damnation.

The Wanderer then asks that he be left alone to meet his destiny. A short time later, young Melmoth and the Spaniard hear strange voices and horrible noises in the room where they left the Wanderer. The next morning, the room is empty. The only sign of the Wanderer is a scarf caught on a bush at the place where he had plunged or had been thrown into the sea.

Bibliography

Coughlan, Patricia. “The Recycling of Melmoth: A Very German Story.” In Literary Interrelations: Ireland, England, and the World, edited by Wolfgang Zach and Heinz Kosok. Vol. 2. Tübingen, Germany: Narr, 1987. Demonstrates the imaginative impact of Melmoth the Wanderer on contemporary authors. Versions of the story by Honoré de Balzac and James Clarence Mangan are given a detailed analysis. Highlights some of the novel’s social and political implications.

Fowler, Kathleen. “Hieroglyphics in Fire: Melmoth the Wanderer.” Studies in Romanticism 25, no. 4 (Winter, 1986): 521-539. Focuses on the novel’s artistic methods and the relation between these methods and the novel’s religious preoccupations. Discusses the use of the book of Job in the novel.

Johnson, Anthony. “Gaps and Gothic Sensibility: Walpole, Lewis, Mary Shelley, and Maturin.” In Exhibited by Candlelight: Sources and Developments in the Gothic Tradition, edited by Valeria Tinkler-Villani, Peter Davidson, and Jane Stevenson. New York: Rodopi, 1995. This study of gothic literature includes Johnson’s learned and clear discussion of how Maturin handles the gaps in reality that are exploited in gothic fiction.

Kiely, Robert. The Romantic Novel in England. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. A significant contribution to the study of the romantic novel. Includes a chapter on Melmoth the Wanderer, emphasizing its religious and political elements. The novel’s psychological interest and cultural implications also are assessed.

Kramer, Dale. Charles Robert Maturin. New York: Twayne, 1973. Succinct account of Maturin’s life and career, and an extended consideration of Melmoth the Wanderer. Discusses the novel’s folkloric dimension and the organizational principles governing the cohesiveness of the various tales.

Moynahan, Julian. “The Politics of Anglo-Irish Gothic: Charles Robert Maturin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and the Return of the Repressed.” In Anglo-Irish: The Literary Imagination in a Hyphenated Culture. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Moynahan’s analysis of gothic literature by the two authors is included in his study of literary works written by Anglo-Irish authors during the nineteenth century.

Norton, Rictor, ed. Gothic Readings: The First Wave, 1764-1840. London: Leicester University Press, 2000. This study of gothic literature includes an excerpt from Melmoth the Wanderer, which is defined as belonging to “the German school of horror,” and two contemporary reviews of the novel, including one by Sir Walter Scott. Useful for placing Maturin within the larger context of the gothic and Romantic novel.