More people should write novels at the age of eighteen - it offers extremely curious insight into one's character. Young Shelley's diction is endearingly repetitive and predictable, and yet the story is bold and expressive, employing a vocabulary far more massive than most eighteen-year-olds in the business, I dare say. Verezzi tends to swoon and faint more often than a Victorian heroine, and the characters seem to lack real depth in many instances, and yet, the unmistakable Gothic element is, on some levels, chillingly satisfying.
So seldom is Shelley widely praised for endeavours other than his uniquely beautiful poetry, that this little gem is a real treat.
I stumbled upon what has since become both my first Hesperus Press edition and my first Shelley in prose in a surprisingly well-stocked library, and I honestly look forward to any other 100 pages Hesperus edition that I can find. ( )

This is a rather bizarre gothic novel, written by Shelley in his teenage years at school. It jumps to the chase as it were, beginning in medias res without any of the 'tedious' build up to the highly gothic elements.

The novel (novella?) quite obviously owes much to previous gothic novels, perhaps especially Lewis's The Monk. In fact, I was amused when I realized that Shelley wrote Zastrozzi much as a modern teenager might write pastiche of something by Lovecraft or a fanfiction of any other novel.

The novel itself is interesting though rather juvenile. Many times while reading, I wished to pull out a blue pencil and give Shelley suggestions on how to improve a scene or the pacing. This is not to say it's not a worthy read - I thoroughly enjoyed it as both part of my meanderings through gothic novels and as a piece of Shelley's juvenalia. ( )