Thomas Percy's Reliques (1765) is one of the founding texts of English literature, an epoch-making collection of historical and lyrical ballads that defined the canon of popular poetry and dramatically influenced Romanticism. This is the first monograph devoted to Percy's seminal work. It unravels Percy's working methods and examines his correspondence, library, and papers.

'He was deaf to the murmurs of conscience, and resolved to satisfy his desires at any price.'
The Monk (1796) is a sensational story of temptation and depravity, a masterpiece of Gothic fiction and the first horror novel in English literature. The respected monk Ambrosio, the Abbot of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, is overwhelmed with desire for a young girl; once having abandoned his monastic vows he begins a terrible descent into immorality and violence. His appalling fall from grace embraces blasphemy, black magic, torture, rape, and murder, and places his...