Mapping Melmoth: Charles Robert Maturin in/and the World Republic of Letters

Abstract

This article offers a transnational mapping of Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) that links fictional narrative both to the contexts of its production and dissemination in a global literary marketplace and to its network of influence, and more particularly, its reputation and afterlife within what Pascale Casanova has influentially called ‘the world republic of letters’. It first considers Melmoth’s internal geography and the novel’s use of space in relation to Maturin’s quest for ‘literary capital’. 1 It then expands upon, in Casanova’s terms, Melmoth’s ‘ littérisation’, namely, the process by which, in spite of its often-unfavourable contemporary reception, Melmoth was transformed from a state of ‘literary inexistence to existence’ via translation and adaptation. 2 Finally, it explores Northern Irish Big Telly Theatre Company’s 2012 dramatic adaptation as evidence of Melmoth’s littérisation.