Books by Matthew Lewis
Journal of a Residence Among the Negroes of the West Indies
by Matthew Lewis
Matthew ‘Monk’ Lewis, the English Gothic novelist, inherited two plantations in Jamaica, but wanted no part of slave-driving. His journal, published a full 16 years after his death, flickers with the shadowy Gothic imagery of his youthful fiction, yet it also brilliantly captures that uncertain period in Jamaican history between slavery’s abolition in 1807 and emancipation 27 years later. Grimly, during his 1817 visit to Jamaica, Lewis caught yellow fever and was buried at sea in the course of his homeward voyage to England.
Interviews where books by Matthew Lewis were recommended
The best books on Jamaica, recommended by Ian Thomson
From two 19th century journals, to historical fiction, to reportage on Jamaicans living in London in the 1950s to the island’s music, British travel writer Ian Thomson, author of The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica, recommends a broad range of books that shed light on Jamaica.
