Today was apparently an excellent day for evil monks and ghostly nuns (note the anti-Catholic subtext), because not only was Ann Radcliffe born #OnThisDay, so was Matthew Gregory Lewis (b. 1775), author of the 1796 gothic novel The Monk.

Where Radcliffe would often lead readers on with intimations of the supernatural, Lewis went so far as to actually to depict some of the gruesome horror Radcliffe leaves to suggestion (which is why there were attempts to censor The Monk.)

Lord Byron’s line on Lewis in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (one of the great works of trash talk):

“Wonder-working Lewis, Monk or Bard,
who fain wouldst make Parnassus a churchyard;
Even Satan’s self with thee might dread to dwell,
And in thy skull discern a deeper hell.”