Charles Robert Maturin's first novel, Fatal Revenge; or, The Family of Montorio, was published in 1807. Maturin's dark tale of the brothers Ippolito and Annibal Montorio is a complexly plotted adventure, full of "strong and vigorous fancy, with great command of language," according to Sir Walter Scott. Maturin's relish for the gothic and horrid, so brilliantly exploited in his masterpiece of 1820, Melmoth the Wanderer, here makes its first appearance, and the themes that haunted the later novel find their initial expression in Fatal Revenge. Maturin's unique talents of "darkening the gloomy,...