Introduction To Melmoth The Wanderer
Balzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's
Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Maturin's Melmoth--great
allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe."
"But what is 'Melmoth'? Why is HE classed as 'a great allegorical
figure'?" exclaimed many a surprised reader. Few had perused--few
know at this day--the terrible story of Melmoth the Wanderer, half
man, h
power and knowledge, and, repenting of his bargain, tries again and
again to persuade some desperate human to change places with him--
penetrates to the refuge of misery, the death chamber, even the
madhouse, seeking one in such utter agony as to accept his help,
and take his curse--but ever fails.
Why this extraordinary tale, told with wild and compelling sweep,
has remained so deep in oblivion, appears immediately on a glance
at the original. The author, Charles Robert Maturin, a needy,
eccentric Irish clergyman of 1780-1824, could cause intense
suspense and horror--could read keenly into human motives--could
teach an awful moral lesson in the guise of fascinating fiction,
but he could not stick to a long story with simplicity. His dozens
of shifting scenes, his fantastic coils of "tales within tales"
sadly perplex the reader of "Melmoth" in the first version. It is
hoped, however, that the present selection, by its directness and
the clearness of the story thread, may please the modern reader
better than the involved original, and bring before a wider public
some of the most gripping descriptions ever penned in English.
In Volume IV of these stories comes a tale, "Melmoth Reconciled,"
which Balzac himself wrote, while under the spell of Maturin's
"great allegorical figure." Here the unhappy being succeeds in his
purpose. The story takes place in mocking, careless Paris, "that
branch establishment of hell"; a cashier, on the eve of
embezzlement and detection, cynically accedes to Melmoth's terms,
and accepts his help--with what unlooked-for results, the reader
may see.
Charles Robert Maturin
More
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A Terribly Strange Bed
WILKIE COLLINS Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of our sojourn. One nig... A Wish Unexpectedly Gratified
When the bogus-lottery men were driven out of the large cities by the vigor of the postal authorities, they tried for a while to operate from small country towns by collusion with dishonest postmasters. As the delinquencies of the offenders were ... Addressed To The Advocate Who Defended Him At His Trial
Respected Sir,--On the twenty-seventh of February I was sent, on business connected with the stables at Maison Rouge, to the city of Metz. On the public promenade I met a magnificent woman. Complexion, blond. Nationality, English. We mutually ... Adventure Of The Black Fisherman
Everybody knows Black Sam, the old negro fisherman, or, as he is commonly called, "Mud Sam," who has fished about the Sound for the last half century. It is now many years since Sam, who was then as active a young negro as any in the province, an... Adventures In The Secret Service Of The Post-office Department
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A few years ago, the "Hon." John Whimpery Brass, of Georgia, one of the "thoughtful patriots" of the period, who now and then found time to lay aside the cares of statecraft to nurse little private jobs of his own, allured by the seductive offers ... An Astral Onion
WHEN Tig Braddock came to Nora Finnegan he was red-headed and freckled, and, truth to tell, he re- mained with these features to the end of his life -- a life prolonged by a lucky, if somewhat improbable, incident, as you shall hear. Tig had... An Erring Shepherd
The ingenuity and perseverance of the fraternity of swindlers is only equaled by the gullibility and patience of their dupes. During the flush times that followed the war, immense fortunes were suddenly acquired by a class of cheats who operated o... An Heiress From Redhorse
CORONADO, June 20th. I find myself more and more interested in him. It is not, I am sure, his--do you know any noun corresponding to the adjective "handsome"? One does not like to say "beauty" when speaking of a man. He is handsome enough, h... An Intangible Clue
"Have you studied the case?" "Not I." "Not studied the case which for the last few days has provided the papers with such conspicuous headlines?" "I do not read the papers. I have not looked at one in a whole week." "Miss Strange, your so... An Old Game Revived
On the 18th of September, 1875, a fellow was arrested in West Virginia who sent the victims whom he proposed to bleed letters whereof the following is a copy:-- "A lady who boarded with me died on last Saturday of apoplexy. She left a trunk ... An Uncomfortable Bed
One autumn I went to stay for the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy. My friends were fond of practical joking, as all my friends are. I do not care to know any other sort of people. When I arrived, they gave me a prince... As Told By Mr Gryce
"In the spring of 1840, the attention of the New York police was attracted by the many cases of well-known men found drowned in the various waters surrounding the lower portion of our great city. Among these may be mentioned the name of Elwood Hende... Bourgonef
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I I remember my childhood very distinctly. I do not think that the fact argues a good memory, for I have never been clever at learning words by heart, in prose or rhyme; so that I believe my remembrance of events depends much more upon the e... Chan Tow The Highrob
Before me sits the Chinese--my friend who, when the hurlyburly's done, spins me out the hours with narratives of ancient Yellowland. His name is Fuey Fong, and he speaks to me thus: "Missa Gordon, whatta is Chrisinjin Indevil Shoshiety?" I... Deception Explained By The Science Of Psychology
The object [of this passage] is to enable the reader to see, more easily, how it is that the watchful observer is deceived into believing that a thing is so, when in reality it is not, and vice versa; and also to give an idea of the various method... Facing The Arab's Pistol
[The severest trial of all was unexpectedly encountered during a visit paid by the conjurer and his wife to Bou-Allem-ben-Sherifa, Bash-Aga of the Djendel, a tribe of the desert interior.] We entered a small room very elegantly decorated, in w... Fact And Fable In Psychology
"He (the conjurer) must dissociate the natural factors of his habits, actually attending to one thing while seemingly attending to another; at the same time his eyes and his gestures and his 'patter' misdirect the attention to what is apparently t... Fear
We went up on deck after dinner. Before us the Mediterranean lay without a ripple and shimmering in the moonlight. The great ship glided on, casting upward to the star-studded sky a long serpent of black smoke. Behind us the dazzling white water, ... Fraudulent Spiritualism Unveiled[1]
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WHEN Urda Bjarnason tells a tale all the men stop their talking to lis- ten, for they know her to be wise with the wisdom of the old people, and that she has more learning than can be got even from the great schools at Reykjavik. She is especia... Ghosts
Just at the time when the _Concordat_ was in its most flourishing condition, a young man belonging to a wealthy and highly respected middle-class family went to the office of the head of the police at P----, and begged for his help and advice, whi... His Last Bow
It was nine o'clock at night upon the second of August--the most terrible August in the history of the world. One might have thought already that God's curse hung heavy over a degenerate world, for there was an awesome hush and a feeling of vag... His Wedded Wife
Cry "Murder!" in the market-place, and each Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes That ask:--"Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain Some centuries ago, across the world, That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain To-day. ... Horror: A True Tale
I was but nineteen years of age when the incident occurred which has thrown a shadow over my life; and, ah me! how many and many a weary year has dragged by since then! Young, happy, and beloved I was in those long-departed days. They said that ... How Spirits Materialize
From "The Revelations of a Spirit Medium"--a book out of existence now, since the plates and all copies were bought up by "spiritualists" and destroyed. The following is given by courtesy of Mr. Hereward Carrington: Reader, have you ever att... How The Tricks Succeeded
When the medium picked up the envelope in which to place my paper, there was within it a duplicate piece of paper folded the same, and of the same size (one inch and a quarter by two inches) as the one I had folded. He kept the face of this envel... Hunted Down
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A stone's throw out on either hand From that well-ordered road we tread, And all the world is wild and strange; Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite Shall bear us company to-night, For we have reached the Oldest Land ... Introduction To A Mystery With A Moral
The next Mystery Story is like no other in these volumes. The editor's defense lies in the plea that Laurence Sterne is not like other writers of English. He is certainly one of the very greatest. Yet nowadays he is generally unknown. His roll... Introduction To Melmoth The Wanderer
Balzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Maturin's Melmoth--great allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe." "But what is 'Melmoth'? Why is HE classed a... Introduction To The Corpus Delicti
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_A work (says the author) which performs more than it promises._ Voltaire never heard of a "detective story"; and yet he wrote the first in modern literature, so clever as to be a model for all the others that followed. He describes his h... Jealousy
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There is one very clever "test" that is sometimes performed which would seem to show that something of this sort IS accomplished. It is, however, nothing more than an ingenious trick, and this might be a good time to explain its modus operandi. ... May Day Eve
It was in the spring when I at last found time from the hospital work to visit my friend, the old folk-lorist, in his country isolation, and I rather chuckled to myself, because in my bag I was taking down a book that utterly refuted all his... Melmoth Reconciled
There is a special variety of human nature obtained in the Social Kingdom by a process analogous to that of the gardener's craft in the Vegetable Kingdom, to wit, by the forcing-house--a species of hybrid which can be raised neither from seed nor ... Melmoth The Wanderer
John Melmoth, student at Trinity College, Dublin, having journeyed to County Wicklow for attendance at the deathbed of his miserly uncle, finds the old man, even in his last moments, tortured by avarice, and by suspicion of all around him. He whi... Mind Reading In Public
Not long ago I received a letter from an old-time friend, in which he urgently requested me to make a journey to his city. In bygone days he and I had spent many hours together, discussing the mysteries of existence, the hidden powers which natur... Missing: Page Thirteen
"One more! just one more well paying affair, and I promise to stop; really and truly to stop." "But, Puss, why one more? You have earned the amount you set for yourself,--or very nearly,--and though my help is not great, in three months I can add... Mr Bloke's Item
Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, walked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suffering upon his countenance, and, sighing heavily, ... My Fascinating Friend
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"Number 481 is no better, doctor," said the head-warder, in a slightly reproachful accent, looking in round the corner of my door. "Confound 481" I responded from behind the pages of the Australian Sketcher. "And 61 says his tubes are pai... My Own True Ghost Story
As I came through the Desert thus it was-- As I came through the Desert. The City of Dreadful Night. Somewhere in the Other World, where there are books and pictures and plays and shop windows to look at, and thousands of me... My Wife's Tempter
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At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and ... On The Northern Ice
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"It has been too much for you?" "I am afraid so." It was Roger Upjohn who had asked the question; it was Violet who answered. They had withdrawn from a crowd of dancers to a balcony, half-shaded, half open to the moon,--a balcony made, it woul... Saint-germain The Deathless
Among the best brief masterpieces of fiction are Lytton's The Haunters and the Haunted, and Thackeray's Notch on the Axe in Roundabout Papers.* Both deal with a mysterious being who passes through the ages, rich, powerful, always behind the scene... Satire Of The Sea
"What was the mystery about St. Alban?" I asked. The Baronet did not at once reply. He looked out over the English country through the ancient oak-trees, above the sweep of meadow across the dark, creeping river, to the white shaft rising beyond... Second Sight
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"Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, "here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone." My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with h...