‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ was written by the Irish protestant clergyman and a writer of Gothic plays and novels Charles Maturin. The story tells of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life, and searches the world for someone who will take over the pact for him. The novel consists of several stories embedded within each other, all related by different characters. The dark psychology of the novels combines intense paranoia, claustrophobic desolate dungeons and storm-wracked graveyards; offering social commentary on early-19th-century England.