Deal with the Devil: The Monk, The Devil's Elixirs (Set of 2 books)

The set includes 2 books: «The Monk» by Matthew Gregory Lewis and «The Devil's Elixirs» by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Two novels about the confrontation between man and the devil and the choices made.

«The Monk» belongs to the type of... novels with scandalous notoriety, especially considering that its author Matthew Gregory Lewis was only 19 years old at the time of publication and was a member of the British Parliament. A novel that is completely unlike the works that England had seen before its publication in 1796. Ominous and disturbing, it radically changed Gothic literature with its dark tone, open narrative about taboo topics: witchcraft, sex, anti-clericalism, murders, incest, excesses of the Spanish Inquisition, satanism.

Aside from the fact that «The Monk» showcases a parade of various perversions before the reader, it also contains anti-Christian reflections worthy of Nietzsche, such as the thought that «even in the annals of a brothel it is hard to find a greater variety of indecent expressions than in the Holy Scriptures».

«The Devil's Elixirs» is dedicated to Hoffmann's favorite theme of the destructive action of the dark half of the human personality. The intrusion of evil into a person's soul is attributed both to hereditary reasons and to the influence of external, demonic supernatural forces. The main character, the monk Medardus, becoming an unwitting bearer of evil after accidentally tasting a mysterious liquid from a crystal vial. The narrative, told from his perspective, allows one to follow through the monastery's passages and cells, and then through a colorful world, experiencing all that the monk endured in life that was terrifying, horrific, mad, and ludicrous... Addressed to all who are drawn to the world of the mysterious and unusual. The edition is supplemented with comments from the translator Vladimir Mikushevich.