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Zeluco: Various Views of Human Nature, Taken from Life and Manners, Foreign and Domestic
“The romantic will love to shudder at Udolpho; but those of mature age, who know what human nature is, will take up again and again Dr. Moore's Zeluco.”
—Anna Lætitia Barbauld
One of the most irredeemably evil characters in all of literature finally returns to print in the first edition of this classic novel since 1827. When Zeluco first appeared in 1789, it was hailed as an instant classic, and its author, Scottish physician John Moore, was ranked with Richardson, Smollett, and Fielding as one of the finest novelists of the eighteenth century. Influential on such writers as Burns and Byron, and selected by Anna Lætitia Barbauld in 1810 for her series of the best British novels, Zeluco mysteriously fell out of print and has remained unobtainable since.
Zeluco charts the career of a wicked Sicilian aristocrat who causes death and ruin to all those around him before finally meeting a horrible fate. But Zeluco is much more than an early Gothic novel featuring a monomaniacal tyrant: it is a rich panorama of life in the late eighteenth century, dealing with English and European manners and hot topics of the day, such as the abolition of slavery. Readers will be thrilled to discover this surprisingly humorous—and eminently readable—lost masterpiece in an excellent new edition by Pam Perkins. This edition features a substantial new introduction, thorough explanatory notes, and appendices containing excerpts from contemporary reactions to the novel and Moores celebrated travel writings.
—Anna Lætitia Barbauld
One of the most irredeemably evil characters in all of literature finally returns to print in the first edition of this classic novel since 1827. When Zeluco first appeared in 1789, it was hailed as an instant classic, and its author, Scottish physician John Moore, was ranked with Richardson, Smollett, and Fielding as one of the finest novelists of the eighteenth century. Influential on such writers as Burns and Byron, and selected by Anna Lætitia Barbauld in 1810 for her series of the best British novels, Zeluco mysteriously fell out of print and has remained unobtainable since.
Zeluco charts the career of a wicked Sicilian aristocrat who causes death and ruin to all those around him before finally meeting a horrible fate. But Zeluco is much more than an early Gothic novel featuring a monomaniacal tyrant: it is a rich panorama of life in the late eighteenth century, dealing with English and European manners and hot topics of the day, such as the abolition of slavery. Readers will be thrilled to discover this surprisingly humorous—and eminently readable—lost masterpiece in an excellent new edition by Pam Perkins. This edition features a substantial new introduction, thorough explanatory notes, and appendices containing excerpts from contemporary reactions to the novel and Moores celebrated travel writings.
456 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1789
2 people are currently reading
83 people want to read
About the author
John Moore
302 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John Moore was a Scottish physician and travel writer. He also edited the works of Tobias Smollett.
He was the son of Rev. Charles Moore of Rowallan (d. 1735) and his wife, Marion Anderson. The family moved to Glasgow in his youth and he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr. John Gordon in Glasgow 1745 to 1747.
After taking a medical degree at Glasgow, Moore served as a Surgeon's Mate with the army in Flanders during the Seven Years' War, then proceeded to London to continue his studies, and eventually to Paris, where became surgeon to the household of the British ambassador.
In 1751 he returned to Glasgow to rejoin Dr. Gordon who was by then practising with Dr. Thomas Hamilton. From 1769 to 1778 he accompanied the Duke of Hamilton (who was related to Thomas) on a Grand Tour of Europe. On his return he took up residence in London. In 1784 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 1792 he accompanied Lord Lauderdale to Paris, where he witnessed some of the events of the French Revolution, experiences he recorded in his Journal during a Residence in France (1793).
Moore died in Richmond in Surrey.
John Moore was a Scottish physician and travel writer. He also edited the works of Tobias Smollett.
He was the son of Rev. Charles Moore of Rowallan (d. 1735) and his wife, Marion Anderson. The family moved to Glasgow in his youth and he was educated at Glasgow Grammar School. He was then apprenticed to Dr. John Gordon in Glasgow 1745 to 1747.
After taking a medical degree at Glasgow, Moore served as a Surgeon's Mate with the army in Flanders during the Seven Years' War, then proceeded to London to continue his studies, and eventually to Paris, where became surgeon to the household of the British ambassador.
In 1751 he returned to Glasgow to rejoin Dr. Gordon who was by then practising with Dr. Thomas Hamilton. From 1769 to 1778 he accompanied the Duke of Hamilton (who was related to Thomas) on a Grand Tour of Europe. On his return he took up residence in London. In 1784 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
In 1792 he accompanied Lord Lauderdale to Paris, where he witnessed some of the events of the French Revolution, experiences he recorded in his Journal during a Residence in France (1793).
Moore died in Richmond in Surrey.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 13, 2020
This is a book about an Evil Villain! and his Nefarious Schemes! The author John Moore wanted to demonstrate that vice leads only to unhappiness, and set out to write a monster of a protagonist to illustrate the theme. The thing is, because Moore felt that virtue would always win out in the end, Zeluco's plots are often strangely ineffective, and it becomes hard not to imagine him stomping around furiously like a pantomime baddie – I started imagining this guy:
Drat! Double drat! And triple drat!
Zeluco came out in 1789, just pre-dating the big '90s boom in Gothic fiction (it was an influence on Ann Radcliffe), and unlike those later writers Moore is not really interested in generating a sense of terror – this is a much more dispassionate analysis of cruelty and selfishness. It can be quite effective: Zeluco, a Sicilian nobleman, crushes a pet sparrow to death as a child and later graduates from animal cruelty to human cruelty, culminating in a horrific scene at the end where he strangles his own son. Much of the intervening plot (set chiefly in Naples) concerns his efforts to possess the virtuous Laura and outwit her friends and relatives.
Along the way there are innumerable diversions and anecdotes and secondary characters who suddenly take over the plot for a few chapters – the story weaves and winds in an almost Sternean way (although the major influence is probably Smollett, who I haven't yet read). This tendency can become distracting, but at its best it makes the book feel like an expansive tour d'horizon of late eighteenth-century issues, taking in long arguments against the slave trade, debates about the Union between England and Scotland, and heated discussions of religious disagreement:
…and so on for many pages. The worldview in all these debates is delightfully modern and liberal, and characteristic of contemporary progressive Whigs like Moore who would be first so excited, and then so let down, by the French Revolution. His tone is light and witty, and the book is surprisingly funny, if you enjoy that style of humour where – as above – a tolerant English irony is set up in opposition to the temptations of enthusiasm and certainty.
Pam Perkins notes in her introduction that the resurgence of interest in eighteenth-century writing has primarily benefited female authors like Radcliffe and Frances Burney at the expense of obscure masters like John Moore. Well, possibly. I certainly found this just as readable as Radcliffe, and a good deal less silly, although Burney is simply on a different level in terms of quality.
But what makes Zeluco interesting is its strange intermediary position between the sentimental novel and the Gothic novel – and its reflection of contemporary tastes, because it was very popular at the time. Mary Wollstonercaft admired it, Anna Laetitia Barbauld included it as the supreme English novel in her edition of The British Novelists, and Byron based his Childe Harolde on it; but then its didacticism became unfashionable, it dropped out of print, and it did not reappear until this edition from Valancourt Books in 2008. For the tone, and the time capsule of contemporary attitudes, it's still worth a read.
Drat! Double drat! And triple drat!
Zeluco came out in 1789, just pre-dating the big '90s boom in Gothic fiction (it was an influence on Ann Radcliffe), and unlike those later writers Moore is not really interested in generating a sense of terror – this is a much more dispassionate analysis of cruelty and selfishness. It can be quite effective: Zeluco, a Sicilian nobleman, crushes a pet sparrow to death as a child and later graduates from animal cruelty to human cruelty, culminating in a horrific scene at the end where he strangles his own son. Much of the intervening plot (set chiefly in Naples) concerns his efforts to possess the virtuous Laura and outwit her friends and relatives.
Along the way there are innumerable diversions and anecdotes and secondary characters who suddenly take over the plot for a few chapters – the story weaves and winds in an almost Sternean way (although the major influence is probably Smollett, who I haven't yet read). This tendency can become distracting, but at its best it makes the book feel like an expansive tour d'horizon of late eighteenth-century issues, taking in long arguments against the slave trade, debates about the Union between England and Scotland, and heated discussions of religious disagreement:
“What alteration, but a favourable one, can accrue from renouncing one of the worst religions in the world for the best?”
“As to which is the worst, and which the best,” said Seidlits, “the world is much divided.”
“The Protestant religion is gaining ground every day,” said the Clergyman; “and there is reason to hope, that in a short time there will be more Protestants than Papists.”
“That is to be sure very comfortable news,” said the Colonel; “but it can have no weight in the present argument; because, every since the beginning of the world, there has been greater numbers devoted to false religions than to the true; and even now, if the question were to be decided by a plurality of voices, the religion of Mahomet might perhaps carry the palm both from the Protestant and Roman Catholic.”
“But you yourself are a Protestant;—you at least prefer the Protestant form of worship to all others,” said the Clergymen.
“I certainly prefer no other form of worship to the Protestant,” replied the Colonel.
“Then I would be glad to know,” said the Clergyman, with a triumphant air, “wherefore you prefer no other?—the same arguments which convinced you might convince your lady?”
“No,” said the Colonel, “that they could not.”
“Why so?” said the Clergyman. “By what powerful arguments were you persuaded to adhere to the Protestant religion?”
“By this powerful argument,” replied the Colonel, “that I was born at Berlin, and bred at Koningsberg.”
…and so on for many pages. The worldview in all these debates is delightfully modern and liberal, and characteristic of contemporary progressive Whigs like Moore who would be first so excited, and then so let down, by the French Revolution. His tone is light and witty, and the book is surprisingly funny, if you enjoy that style of humour where – as above – a tolerant English irony is set up in opposition to the temptations of enthusiasm and certainty.
Pam Perkins notes in her introduction that the resurgence of interest in eighteenth-century writing has primarily benefited female authors like Radcliffe and Frances Burney at the expense of obscure masters like John Moore. Well, possibly. I certainly found this just as readable as Radcliffe, and a good deal less silly, although Burney is simply on a different level in terms of quality.
But what makes Zeluco interesting is its strange intermediary position between the sentimental novel and the Gothic novel – and its reflection of contemporary tastes, because it was very popular at the time. Mary Wollstonercaft admired it, Anna Laetitia Barbauld included it as the supreme English novel in her edition of The British Novelists, and Byron based his Childe Harolde on it; but then its didacticism became unfashionable, it dropped out of print, and it did not reappear until this edition from Valancourt Books in 2008. For the tone, and the time capsule of contemporary attitudes, it's still worth a read.
November 13, 2022
I had never heard of this book until in the course of reading Adam Bede, one of the principal characters of that work takes out his copy of it and reads it while riding his horse. Thinking that his taste in literature may have had something to do with the nature of this character, I did a little research. Google Books had a most interesting summary as follows: 'This work has been selected by scholars* as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations". I searched my usual public domain haunts and failed to find a "clean" copy, the best being a very ordinary pdf of the 18th century volume. Not to be fazed, I struggled initially with the archaic font, which included long S characters and various ligatures and, on finishing reading the first (of two) volumes, I gave it a rating of two stars and initially didn't bother even pursuing a copy of Volume 2. However, my curiosity got the better of me and I have just finished it, and have now updated my rating to five stars. Without saying any more, I find myself in total agreement with those scholars* and give an unqualified recommendation to all lovers of the classics to find a copy and read it.
August 19, 2017
A rather loose plot and a string of often unconnected episodes make this a rather heavy and slow read. Some humour, but overall the narrative is dry and the language terribly wooden. I really wanted to enjoy this book as another 18thC hidden gem, but eventually gave up half way through.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews