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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Oct 2018, 288 pages
Paperback:
Oct 2019, 336 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Meara Conner
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For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history's darkest waters - and now, in Sarah Perry's breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.
It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts - or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.
But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears...
J. A. Hoffman
c/o The National Library of the Czech Republic
December 2016
My dear Dr Pražan –
How deeply I regret that I must put this document in your hands, and so make you the witness to what I have done!
Many times you said to me: 'Josef, what are you writing? What have you been doing all this time?' My friend, I would not tell you, because I have been the watchman at the door. But now my pen is dry, the door is open, and something's waiting there that will turn what small regard you have for me to ruins. I can bear that well enough, since I never deserved your regard - but I am afraid for you, because beyond the threshold only one light shines, and it's far more dreadful than the dark...
Ten days have passed and all the while I have been thinking only of my fault, my fault, my most grievous fault! I do not sleep. I feel her eyes on me and with hope and dread I turn, but find I'm all alone! I walk through the city in the dark and think I ...
Melmoth speaks to humanity's longing for redemption, while keeping its audience constantly on edge; make sure to read this one with the lights on...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Meara Conner).
Though the story encapsulated in Sarah Perry's Melmoth is entirely her own, it derives its name and legend from Irish playwright, Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer. Published in 1820, Melmoth the Wanderer follows John Melmoth, a young student in Dublin, as he visits his dying uncle. Upon his arrival, he discovers an old portrait of a mysterious relative simply labeled, "Melmoth." At his uncle's funeral, John inquires about this photo and is given a manuscript transcribed by an old family acquaintance named Stanton, who has collected several dark legends regarding the being he refers to as "...
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