"
_Zastrozzi_ was published in April, 1810, while Shelley was still
at Eton, and with the L40 paid for the romance, he is said to
have given a banquet to eight of his friends. Though the story is
little more than a _rechauffe_ of previous tales of terror, it
evidently attained some measure of popularity. It was reprinted
in _The Romancist and Novelist's Library_ in 1839. Like Godwin,
Shelley contrived to smuggle a little contraband theory into his
novels, but his stock-in-trade is mainly that of the
terrormongers. The book to which Shelley was chiefly indebted was
_Zofloya or the Moor_ (1806), by the notorious Charlotte Dacre or
"Rosa Matilda," but there are many reminiscences of Mrs.
Radcliffe and of "Monk" Lewis. The sources of _Zastrozzi_ and
_St. Irvyne_ have been investigated in the _Modern Language
Review_ (Jan. 1912), by Mr. A. M. D. Hughes, who gives a complete
analysis of the plot of _Zofloya_, and indicates many parallels
with Shelley's novels. The heroine of _Zofloya_ is clearly a
lineal descendant of Lewis's Matilda, though Victoria di
Loredani, with all her vices, never actually degenerates into a
fiend. Victoria, it need hardly be stated, is nobly born, but she
has been brought up amid frivolous society by a worthless mother,
and: "The wildest passions predominated in her bosom; to gratify
them she possessed an unshrinking, relentless soul that would not
startle at the darkest crime.
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