L. W. Currey, Inc.

Maturin, Charles Robert. FATAL REVENGE; OR, THE FAMILY OF MONTORIO. A ROMANCE. By Dennis Jasper Murphy [pseudonym]. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row, 1807. 12mo, three volumes: pp. [i-iii] iv-viii [ix] x-xiii [xiv] [1] 2-400; [i-ii] [1] 2-518; [i-ii] [1] 2-493 [494: blank], green three-quarter morocco and marbled boards period style by Philip Dusel, spine panels lettered and tooled in gold. First edition. The author's first book. "From his beginnings as a Gothic novelist, Maturin was addicted to ultra-complicated plots whose dramatic commotion rivals the tangled tragedies of blood of the Elizabethan playwrights, and Jacobean melodramatists -- Marlowe, Tourneur, Webster, and Chapman. The infinitely elaborate trappings of the Elizabethan revenge play seem to serve Maturin as a model for Montorio ... To supplement the revenge plot, there is also plenty of monastic and inquisitional atrocity and a shrill style of poetic horror that will later become central in MELMOTH THE WANDERER." - Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 1-242. "A remarkable novel, superior even to MELMOTH THE WANDERER in atmosphere and color, though very difficult to follow." - Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1133. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 1-62. Bleiler (ed), Supernatural Fiction Writers: Fantasy and Horror, p. 164. Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 285. Summers, A Gothic Bibliography, p. 319. Bleiler (1978), p. 136. Reginald 09827. Block, p. 156. NCBEL III 746. Sadleir 1664. Wolff 4648. Garside, Raven and Schöwerling 1807:42. Volume two lacks terminal blank leaf Aa2 (pages 519/520), and volume three lacks terminal leaf Y8, a leaf of ads headed "New Works" (pages 495/496); Some spots and stains throughout, more so to the title leaf and text of volume one. Overall, this is a very good, sound set in a very attractive binding. A scarce novel that last appeared at public auction in 1979. (#154930).

Price: $7,500.00