Melmoth, one of the most fiendish characters in literature, was created by an Irish clergyman determined, as he put it, to 'display all my diabolical resources'. In a satanic bargain, Melmoth has sold his soul in exchange for immortality. As his story is pieced together through those who have glimpsed his eerie existence over the centuries, we witness Melmoth's desperate quest to find someone who will take his place and release him from his tortured wanderings. Comic, violent, allusive and profound, Melmoth the Wanderer casts a plumb line into the depths of human perversity. Ever since it appeared in 1820 it has been hugely influential, numbering Balzac, Poe, André Breton and Oscar Wilde among its many admirers. It is, according to Victor Sage, 'a labyrinthine form without a centre ... the Gothic romance to end all Gothic romances'. This edition includes a critical introduction, explanatory notes and further reading.

The first book in English on the German Gothic in over thirty years, consisting of new essays investigating the internationality of the Gothic mode. The literary mode of the Gothic is well established in English Studies, and there is growing interest in its internationality. Gothic fiction is seen as transgressive, especially in the way it crosses borders, often illicitly -- for instance, in the form of plagiarized texts or pseudo-translations of nonexistent sources. In the 1790s, when the English Gothic novel was emerging, the real or ostensible source of many of these uncanny texts was Germany. Thisfirst book in English dedicated to the German Gothic in over thirty years is aimed at students and researchers in German Studies and English Studies, and redresses deficiencies in existing sources, which are outdated, piecemeal, or not sufficiently grounded in German Studies. The book examines the international reception of German Gothic since the 1790s heyday of the Gothic novel in Britain and Germany; traces a line of Gothic writing in German to thepresent day; and inquires into the extraliterary impact of German Gothic. Thus the essays do full justice to the Gothic as a site of conflict and exchange -- both between cultures and between discourses. Contributors:Peter Arnds, Silke Arnold-de Simine, Jurgen Barkhoff, Matthias Bickenbach, Andrew Cusack, Mario Grizelj, Joerg Kreienbrock, Barry Murnane, Victor Sage, Monika Schmitz-Emans, Catherine Smale, Andrew Webber Andrew Cusack is Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institut fur Kulturwissenschaft of the Humboldt-Universitat Berlin. Barry Murnane is Assistant Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the Martin-Luther-Universitat Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

A world of spirits, a locked cabinet, an abduction, past secrets that spill into the present combine to make Uncle Silas, Le Fanu's most celebrated novel of sensation. From the moment that Madame de la Rougierre is hired as governess to the young, naïve Maud Ruthyn, a dark cloud of foreboding hangs over the entire household. A liar, a bully and a spy, Madame eventually leaves, taking her dark secret with her.

But unhappily for Maud, that is not the last of Madame de la Rougierre. For when Maud is orphaned she is sent to live with her Uncle Silas, her father's mysterious brother, a man with a scandalous - even murderous - past. Here she encounters Madame once more. This time her sinister role in Maud's destiny is all too clear.

With its subversion of reality and illusion and its depiction of the 'filmy layers' of Maud's passions and fears, Uncle Silas goes beyond the bounds of the conventional horror story to become a chilling psychological thriller.

This edition contains an introduction, chronology and explanatory notes.