Zastrozzi

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Book Overview

On the run from vicious outlaws, Verezzi meets Matilda after she had decided to end her own life by jumping off a bridge. However, after Verezzi talks her out of it, the two become friends, though Matilda grows more attached than Verezzi does. Becoming obsessed with the man, Matilda offers to let Verezzi stay in her home, hoping to win him over. Still weary of the outlaws that seek to harm him, Verezzi happily accepts. While she provides him boarding...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1513277731
• ISBN13: 9781513277738
• Release Date: March 2021
• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Overlooked Gothic Masterpieces

Zastrozzi: A Romance (1810) and St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) are Gothic horror novel masterpieces by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Zastrozzi was the first published prose work by Shelley in 1810. He wrote Zastrozzi when he was seventeen and a student at Eton. People remember Percy Bysshe Shelley today as a poet who wrote Ozymandias, To a Skylark, The Cenci, Prometheus Unbound, Adonais, and The Masque of Anarchy. Shelley began his literary career, however, with the publication of two Gothic horror romance novels, Zastrozzi in 1810 and St. Irvyne in 1811. Shelley is regarded as one of the greatest poets in the English language. His prose writings, however, have been neglected and overlooked. The Broadview Press edition presents these two novels together along with the Wolfstein chapbook and the shorter works The Assassins and The Coliseum. Zastrozzi is about obsession, revenge, and the agony of unrequited love. Zastrozzi first kidnaps Verezzi and imprisons him in a dungeon. Bernardo and Ugo guard him. Zastrozzi seeks revenge against Verezzi to avenge his mother. Matilda, the Contessa di Laurentini, is obsessively in love with Verezzi. Verezzi, Il Conte Verezzi, however, is in love with Julia, La Marchesa de Strobazzo. Zastrozzi manipulates Matilda to destroy Verezzi. He exploits Matilda's obsessive love for Verezzi to destroy both. Zastrozzi is a complex psychological thriller. The story is not a simple tale about good versus evil. Zastrozzi goes beyond good and evil. Zastrozzi is a precursor of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche. Pietro Zastrozzi is a precursor of Rodion Raskolnikov of Crime and Punishment and Also Sprach Zarathustra. He is a superman who dismisses ordinary morality. He is an atheist for whom all is permitted. Zastrozzi is a demi-god, an assassin, who creates his own values and laws and morality. Zastrozzi is a tale of pure horror. Zastrozzi is not satiated to kill merely the body. He seeks to kill the soul. Death is not the worst that can happen. He keeps Verezzi alive to be able to inflict unspeakable tortures on him and to terrorize and to manipulate him. Zastrozzi seeks to punish not only the alleged wrongdoer, but to punish their progeny as well. Ironically, Verezzi and Zastrozzi may have had the same father. Verezzi is his brother. Zastrozzi seeks revenge against his own father, his human Creator. It is a revolt against God. Zastrozzi is angry with God and seeks to create his own reality, his own world. He becomes a god himself. The inquisition has no terrors for him. Death has no terror for him. He creates his own values and morality. He can do whatever he wishes with other human beings. He decides their fate, whether they will live or die. Zastrozzi reaches the limits of human horror and depravity and terror. Man rejects God and becomes a god himself. God is dead. This theme was later central to the Gothic novel Frankenstein by Shelley's wife Mary Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote