The grim and ghastly legends included in
"Monk" Lewis's _Tales of Terror_ (1799) and _Tales of Wonder_
(1801) fascinated Shelley;[92] and the suggestive titles
_Revenge_;[93] _Ghasta, or the Avenging Demon_;[94] _St. Edmund's
Eve_;[95] _The Triumph of Conscience_ from the _Poems by Victor
and Cazire_ (1810), and _The Spectral Horseman_ from _The
Posthumous Poems of Margaret Nicholson_ (1810), all prove his
preoccupation with the supernatural. That Shelley's enthusiasm
for the gruesome and uncanny was not merely morbid and
hysterical, the mad, schoolboyish letter, written while he was in
the throes of composing _St. Irvyne_, is sufficient indication.
In a mood of grotesque fantasy and wild exhilaration, Shelley
invites his friend Graham to Field Place. The postscript is in
his handwriting, but is signed by his sister Elizabeth:
"The avenue is composed of vegetable substances moulded
in the form of trees called by the multitude Elm trees.
Stalk along the road towards them and mind and keep
yourself concealed as my mother brings a blood-stained
stiletto which she purposes to make you bathe in the
lifeblood of your enemy. Never mind the Death-demons
and skeletons dripping with the putrefaction of the
grave, that occasionally may blast your straining
eyeballs.
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