Washington Allston: Monaldi: A Tale (1841)

The nineteenth-century American artist Washington Allston bridges the worlds of art and literature in his novel Monaldi: A Tale (1841). Full of Gothic intrigue and suspense, Allston’s novel tells the story of a renowned and idealistic Italian artist named Monaldi, who descends into madness and despair after falling prey to the machinations of his evil poet-friend Maldura and a bandit named Fialto. An introduction to this new edition of Monaldi addresses the Gothic literary qualities of the novel: the frame narrative, the Italian setting (which features a cavern, a monastery, and banditti), sexual transgression, attempted murder, and the Romantic landscape. In his time, Allston achieved fame as a Grand Manner history painter in both Great Britain and the United States, but his novel has received less attention from scholars than his paintings. This new edition draws attention to this semi-forgotten work in the transatlantic Gothic canon.