Melmoth the Wanderer empty. They follow Melmoth's tracks to the top of a cliff, and see his handkerchief on a crag below them. "Exchanging looks of silent and unutterable horror", they return home. Honoré de Balzac wrote a follow-up story ("Melmoth Reconciled") and considered Maturin's novel worthy of a place among Molière's "Don Juan", Goethe's "Faust" and Lord Byron's "Manfred" as one of the supreme icons of modern European literature. Oscar Wilde, during his travels after release from prison, called himself Sebastian Melmoth, deriving this pseudonym from the title character in his great-uncle's novel and from Saint Sebastian. Historian of English literature Walter
William Melmoth his son did so in 1797. However, the work sold exceptionally well, having a staggering thirty editions by 1797 and selling 420,000 copies between 1766 and 1784 alone. Melmoth wrote pamphlets and short works for publication, anonymously, throughout his public life, but he was only an occasional author. In 1719, he was made a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn and was soon recognised as one of the leading chancery counsel of the day. He devoted considerable energies to the physical and financial improvement of the Inn and continued to work up until a few days before his death on 6 April