About
Matthew Gregory Lewis was an English novelist and dramatist, whose writings are often classified as "Gothic horror". He was frequently referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his 1796 Gothic novel The Monk. He also worked as a diplomat, politician and an estate owner in Jamaica.
As a writer, Lewis is typically classified as writing in the Gothic horror genre, along with the authors Charles Maturin and Mary Shelley. Lewis was most assuredly influenced by Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and William Godwin's Caleb Williams. In fact, Lewis actually wrote a letter to his mother a few months before he began writing The Monk, stating that he saw a resemblance between the villain Montoni from The Mysteries of Udolpho and himself.
Lewis took Radcliffe's obsession with the supernatural and Godwin's narrative drive and interest in crime and punishment, but Lewis differed with his literary approach. Whereas Radcliffe would allude to the imagined horrors under the genre of terror-Gothic, Lewis defined himself by disclosing the details of the gruesome scenes, earning him the title of a Gothic horror novelist.
