Journal of a West India Proprietor by Matthew Lewis

Journal of a West India Proprietor by Matthew Lewis

Every man of humanity must wish that slavery, even in its best and most mitigated form, had never found a legal sanction, and must regret that its system is now so incorporated with the welfare of Great Britain as well as of Jamaica, as to make its extirpation an absolute impossibilitiy, without the certainty of producing worse mischiefs than the one which we annihilate. Matthew Lewis is best remembered as the author of the sensational Gothic novel The Monk (1796). He was also a slave-owner, inheriting two large plantations and visiting Jamaica twice in 1815-16 and 1817-18, primarily to investigate the living and working conditions of his slaves. His anecdotal record, the Journal of a West India Proprietor, was not published until 1834, nearly twenty years after his death from yellow fever on the second return voyage. Warmly praised by Coleridge, the Journal's vivid descriptions and lively, self-deprecating tone make it one of the most readable accounts from a slave-owners perspective of plantation life. Yet, although Lewis emerges as a humane and enthusiastic chronicler, his omissions are as significant as the carnivalesque vignettes he sketches, and, for all his geniality, he is unable to break through the framework of imperialist discourse. Situated between the eradication of slavery under British imperialism in 1807 and emancipation in 1834-1838, the Journal of a West India Proprietor records a colonial encounter, between slave-holder and slaves, at a significant historical moment. This unique edition provides full contextual background and includes Lewis's verse narrative The Isle of Devils, as well as a telling last letter and extract from his papers.

Lewis, Matthew G.: - Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775 - 1818) was an English novelist and dramatist, often referred to as Monk Lewis, because of the success of his 1796 Gothic novel, The Monk. As a writer, Lewis is typically classified as writing in the Gothic horror genre, along with the authors Charles Robert Maturin and Mary Shelley. Lewis was most assuredly influenced by Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and William Godwin's Caleb Williams. In fact, Lewis actually wrote a letter to his mother a few months before he began writing The Monk in which he stated that he saw resemblance between the villain Montoni from The Mysteries of Udolpho and himself. He took Radcliffe's obsession with the supernatural and Godwin's narrative drive and interest in crime and punishment, Lewis differed with his literary approach. Whereas Radcliffe would allude to the imagined horrors under the genre of terror-Gothic, Lewis defined himself by disclosing the details of the gruesome scenes, earning him the title of a Gothic horror novelist. By giving the reader actual details rather than the terrified feelings rampant in Radcliffe, Lewis provides a more novelistic experience.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192832610
ISBN 10	0192832611
Title	Journal of a West India Proprietor
Author	Matthew Lewis
Series	Oxford World's Classics Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1999-07-01
Number of pages	347
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.