Auriol (novel)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary. Please help improve the article by adding more real-world context. (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Auriol: or, The Elixir of Life is a historical and gothic novel by British novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. It was first published in 1844 in serial form, under the title Revelations of London.

Auriol differs from Ainsworth's other works because the action is presented entirely as a fantasy, so that the supernatural element (which also occurs in Guy Fawkes and Windsor Castle) is more prominent. The story takes influence from the gothic romance and Faust genres. There is also a distinct connection with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, in the kidnapping of girls theme, and in that the story concludes in the atmosphere of the lunatic's confinement (and possible recovery), and the villain of the story is his keeper. Indeed, the use of the phantasmagorical aspects of the story to create a nightmarish commentary on contemporary society of the 1830s and 1840s anticipates (in the early 19th century) the expressionism of Robert Wiene's Caligari. German interest in English literature of this period is also suggested in the works of Edward Bulwer-Lytton (Rienzi and The Coming Race). Similarly it was John Gay and Dr Pepusch who provided the source-structure in The Beggar's Opera for Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera. There is a characteristic series of illustrations by "Phiz".