Tales of Wonder!

This image mocks the Romantic era's fixation with horror, melodrama, and the sublime. The print was dedicated to Matthew Gregory Lewis, author of the popular novel The Monk, published in 1796. A group of women are shown listening in terror as their companion reads aloud this gothic tale about the downfall of a pious monk who raped and murdered women and ultimately sold his soul to the devil. The room is decorated with its own frightful embellishments; a dragon, Gorgon's head and small skeleton intertwined in a snake adorn the chimneypiece, and a violent painting resembling The Rape of the Sabines hangs on the wall.