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Matthew Gregory Lewis
(July 9, 1775 - May 14, 1818) U.K.

Matthew Lewis

Writer

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Known as "Monk" Lewis from his popular terror romance The Monk (1796), a representative Gothic novel. Lewis was greatly influenced by german Romanticism, and wrote numerous dramas. His verse (of which "Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imagine" appears in The Monk) had some influence on Sir W. Scott's early poetry.

Lewis was born to well-to-do, loving parents, and acted as emissary between his mother and father from the age of six, when his parents divorced. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church College, Oxford.

At eighteen he left the university and went to The Hague to pursue a diplomatic career, but while there he completed The Monk, which caused something of a scandal on publication. Lewis was appointed to Parliament and became an MP from 1796 to 1802. He was censured in Parliament for The Monk.

In his life, Lewis may never have had sexual relationships with other men but he was deeply attached to William Kelly, and author, with whom he corresponded and whom he included in his will.

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Source: excerpts from: Gabriele Griffin, Who's Who in Lesbian and Gay and Writing, Routledge, London, 2002

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