Zastrozzi: A Romance is a Gothic novella by Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1810 in London by George Wilkie and John Robinson anonymously, with only the initials of the author's name, as "by P.B.S.". The first of Shelley's two early Gothic novellas, the other being St. Irvyne, outlines his atheistic worldview through the villain ZastrozziPercy Bysshe Shelley, Academy of American Poets and touches upon his earliest thoughts on irresponsible self-indulgence and violent revenge. An 1810 reviewer wrote that the main character "Zastrozzi is one of the most savage and improbable demons that ever issued from a diseased brain".
Shelley wrote Zastrozzi at the age of seventeenEarly Shelley: Vulgarisms, Politics, and Fractals , Romantic Circles while attending his last year at Eton College, though it was not published until later in 1810 while he was attending University College, Oxford.Percy Bysshe Shelley Biography, Poem of Quotes.com The novella was Shelley's first published prose work.
In 1986, the novel was released as part of the Oxford World's Classics series by Oxford University. Nicole Berry translated the novel in a French edition in 1999. A German translation by Manfred Pfister was published in 2007. The novel was translated into Persian or Farsi in 2023 and into Turkish in 2024.Zastrozzi. Everest yayinlari. Retrieved 10 July 2025."Shelley's novel Zastrozzi published in Persian." The Tehran Times, January 21, 2023. Retrieved 10 July 2025.
Major characters Pietro Zastrozzi, an outlaw who seeks revenge against Verezzi, his half-brother Verezzi, Il Conte, imprisoned by Zastrozzi Julia, La Marchesa de Strobazzo, intended wife of Verezzi Matilda, the Contessa di Laurentini, seduces Verezzi in plan devised by Zastrozzi Bernardo, servant to Zastrozzi Ugo, servant to Zastrozzi Ferdinand Zeilnitz, servant to Matilda Bianca, servant to Zastrozzi Claudine, old woman in Passau, shelters Verezzi The Monk The Inquisitor The Superior, a judge
Epigraph The epigraph on the title page of the novel is from Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton, Book II, 368–371:
—That their God May prove their foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works—This would surpass Common revenge. – Paradise Lost.
Plot Pietro Zastrozzi, an outlaw, and his two servants, Bernardo and Ugo, disguised in masks, abduct Verezzi from the inn near Munich where he lives and take him to a cavern hideout. Verezzi is locked in a room with an iron door. Chains are placed around his waist and limbs and he is attached to the wall.
Verezzi is able to escape and to flee his abductors, running away to Passau in Lower Bavaria. Claudine, an elderly woman, allows Verezzi to stay at her cottage. Verezzi saves Matilda from jumping off of a bridge. She befriends him. Matilda seeks to persuade Verezzi to marry her. Verezzi, however, is in love with Julia. Matilda provides lodging for Verezzi at her castle or mansion estate near Venice. Her tireless efforts to seduce him are unsuccessful.
Zastrozzi is consumed by revenge against Verezzi:
"I will taste revenge; for revenge is sweeter than life: and even were I to die with him, and, as the punishment of my crime, be instantly plunged into eternal torments, I should taste superior joy in recollecting the sweet moment of his destruction. O! would that destruction could be eternal!"
Zastrozzi concocts a plan to torture and to torment Verezzi. He spreads a false rumour that Julia has died, exclaiming to Matilda: "Would Julia of Strobazzo's heart was reeking on my dagger!" Verezzi is convinced that Julia is dead. Distraught and emotionally shattered, he then relents and offers to marry Matilda.
The truth is revealed that Julia is still alive. Verezzi is so distressed at his betrayal that he kills himself. Matilda kills Julia in retaliation. Zastrozzi and Matilda are arrested for murder. Matilda repents. Zastrozzi, however, remains defiant before an inquisition. He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Zastrozzi confesses that he sought revenge against Verezzi because Verezzi's father had deserted his mother, Olivia, who died young, destitute, and in poverty. Zastrozzi blamed his father for the death of his mother, who died before she was thirty. Zastrozzi sought revenge against not only his own father, whom he murdered, but also against "his progeny for ever", his son Verezzi. Verezzi and Zastrozzi had the same father. By murdering his own father, Zastrozzi only killed his corporeal body. By manipulating Verezzi into committing suicide, however, Zastrozzi confessed that his objective was to achieve the eternal damnation of Verezzi's soul based on the proscription of the Christian religion against suicide. Zastrozzi, an outspoken atheist, goes to his death on the rack rejecting and renouncing religion and morality "with a wild convulsive laugh of exulting revenge".Zastrozzi by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The University of Adelaide, Australia.
Reception The Gentleman's Magazine, regarded as the first literary magazine, published a favourable review of Zastrozzi in September, 1810: "A short, but well-told tale of horror, and, if we do not mistake, not from an ordinary pen. The story is so artfully conducted that the reader cannot easily anticipate the denouement, which is conducted on the principles of moral justice: and, by placing the scene on the Continent, the Author has availed himself of characters and vices which, however useful in narratives of this description, thank God, are not to be found in this country."Marsh, George L. "The Early Reviews of Shelley." Modern Philology 27.1 (1929): 73-95. The Critical Review, a conservative journal with a "reactionary aesthetic agenda", on the other hand, called the main character Zastrozzi "one of the most savage and improbable demons that ever issued from a diseased brain." The reviewer dismissed the novella: "We know not when we have felt so much indignation as in the perusal of this execrable production. The author of it cannot be too severely reprobated. Not all his 'scintillated eyes,' his 'battling emotions,' his 'frigorific torpidity of despair'... ought to save him from infamy, and his volume from the flames."Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Zastrozzi: A Romance; St. Irvyne, or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by Stepehen C. Behrendt. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2002
Zastrozzi was republished in 1839 in The Romancist and Novelist's Library: The Best Works of the Best Authors, Volume 1, No. 10, published in London by John Clements.The Romancist, and Novelist's Library: The Best Works of the Best Authors, Volume 1, No. 10, 1839, page 145.
The novel contains psychological and autobiographical components. Eustace Chesser, in Shelley and Zastrozzi (1965), analysed the novella as a complex psychological thriller: "When I first came across Zastrozzi I was immediately struck by its resemblance to the dream material with which every psychoanalyst is familiar. It was not a story told with the detachment of a professional writer for the entertainment of the public. Whatever the conscious intention of the young Shelley, he was in fact, writing for himself. He was opening the floodgates of the unconscious and allowing its fantasies to pour out unrestrainedly. He was betraying, unwittingly, the emotional problems that agitated his adolescent mind."Chesser, Eustace. Shelley and Zastrozzi: Self-Revelation of a Neurotic. London: Gregg/Archive, 1965. Eustace Chesser: "The story itself had the incoherence of a dream because that is just what it was – a day dream in which our conscious conflicts were worked out in disguise."
Real experiences and actual people were projected on fictional events and characters. Subconscious conflicts are resolved in the writing process. Patrick Bridgwater, in Kafka, Gothic and Fairytale (2003), argued that the novella anticipated Franz Kafka's work in the twentieth century.Bridgwater, Patrick. Kafka, Gothic and Fairytale. NY: Rodopi, 2003. Patrick Bridgwater: "Zastrozzi is more interesting than it is generally allowed: ... it comes into its own when considered side by side with Kafka's work."
Stylistically, the novella reveals several flaws. The most striking flaw is missing chapters, although some critics and editors have argued that Shelley intended this omission as a prank. At about one hundred pages, Zastrozzi is shorter than novel-length, which prevents a more thorough and complete development of the characters. In the middle sections of the novella, moreover, there is not enough variation in the setting. There is a primary focus on Verezzi and Matilda to the exclusion of the other characters and at the expense of the plot development. Shelley also experiments with word selection and structure which tends to slow down the flow of the story.
Adaptations In 1977, Canadian playwright George F. Walker wrote a successful play adaptation called "Zastrozzi, The Master of Discipline" based on the Shelley novella. The play was based on a plot summary of Shelley's work, but in and of itself was something "rather different from the novel," in the author's words. The play has repeatedly been revived and was part of the 2009 season of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.Stratford Festival. Past Productions. 2009. Zastrozzi. Walker's play retains all the major characters of the Shelley novella, the core plot, and the moral and ethical issues relating to revenge and retribution and atheism. The play has been in continuous production worldwide since it was published in 1977.
In 1986, Channel Four Films in Britain produced a four-part television mini-series of the Shelley novella as Zastrozzi, A Romance, adapted and directed by David G. Hopkins and produced by Lindsey C. Vickers and David Lascelles, shown on Channel Four. The series was also shown on American television on PBS in a version by WNET on the "Channel Crossings" program.O'Connor, John J. "TV View: 'Channel Crossings' Brings Sense of Surprise", 2 November 1986, New York Times. Retrieved 4 April 2018. Mark McGann played Verezzi, Tilda Swinton played Julia, Hilary Trott played Matilda, Max Wall was the Priest, while Zastrozzi was played by newcomer Geff Francis. The production consisted of four 52-minute episodes. In 1990, Jeremy Isaacs named the dramatisation of Zastrozzi as one of the 10 programmes of which he was most proud during his tenure as Channel 4's chief executive.Furse, John. "David Hopkins: Filmmaker with a passion for all things independent," The Guardian, 15 June 2004. Retrieved 4 June 2017.
The entire four-part miniseries Zastrozzi, A Romance was released on DVD on two discs on 8 October 2018 in the UK.
Similarities to Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's personal journals and reading records confirm that she read Zastrozzi in 1814.Mary Shelley's Readings: Alphabetical List. University of Pennsylvania. knarf.
There are similarities between Zastrozzi and Frankenstein in terms of imagery, style, themes, plot structure and character development. Phillip Wade noted how the allusions to John Milton's Paradise Lost are present in both novels:Wade, Phillip. "Shelley and the Miltonic Element in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Milton and the Romantics, 2 (December 1976), 23-25. A scene from Zastrozzi is re-invoked in Frankenstein.