St. Irvyne; or The Rosicrucian: A Romance

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St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) is a novel by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Although he is commonly regarded as a leading Romantic poet, Shelley published this Gothic horror tale at the beginning of his career while an undergraduate at the University of Oxford. Controversial for its violent themes and exploration of the darker side of human consciousness, St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance remains an important early work of Shelleys and continues to inform scholars of the Romantic style to this day. Left with nowhere to go, Wolfstein turns to the treacherous slopes of the Swiss Alps, where he contemplates suicide and rages against the ills of society. During a thunderstorm, he takes shelter and encounters a band of monks. As they prepare to take him in, a group of bandits attacks, seizing what they can and forcing Wolfstein to follow them to their underground lair. There, he meets Megalena, a beautiful captive. Soon, he overhears a guard sing a chilling song about a woman named Rosa, Wolfstein fears that their lives are in grave danger. He manages to poison Cavigni, their leader, and escapes with Megalena through the mountains. They settle in Genoa, where they attempt to return to a sense of normalcy. When another woman comes between the two lovers, Wolfstein is forced to make a fateful decision. St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance is a novel of romance, terror, and the supernatural by a leading writer of English Romanticism. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Percy Bysshe Shelleys St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Author Bio

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was an English Romantic poet. During his time at Oxford, he began his literary career in earnest, publishing Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire (1810) and St. Irvine; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) In 1811, he married Harriet Westbrook, with whom he lived an itinerant lifestyle while pursuing affairs with other women. Through the poet Robert Southey, he fell under the influence of political philosopher William Godwin, whose daughter Mary soon fell in love with the precocious young poet. In the summer of 1814, Shelley eloped to France with Mary and her stepsister Claire Claremont, travelling to Holland, Germany, and Switzerland before returning to England in the fall. In 1816, Percy and Mary accepted an invitation to join Claremont and Lord Byron in Europe, spending a summer in Switzerland at a house on Lake Geneva. In 1818, following several years of unhappy life in England, the Shelleys--now married--moved to Italy, where Percy worked on The Masque of Anarchy (1819), Prometheus Unbound (1820), and Adonais (1821), now considered some of his most important works. In July of 1822, Shelley set sail on the Don Juan and was lost in a storm only hours later. His death at the age of 29 was met with despair and contempt throughout England and Europe, and he is now considered a leading poet and radical thinker of the Romantic era.