Poems St. Irvyne; or, the Rosicrucian

St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance is a Gothic horror novel written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1810. The novella was a follow-up to Shelley's first prose work, Zastrozzi, published earlier in 1810.

The main character is Wolfstein, a solitary wanderer, who encounters Ginotti, an alchemist of the Rosicrucian or Rose Cross Order who seeks to impart the secret of immortality.

Wolfstein is a wanderer in the Swiss Alps who seeks cover from the storm. He is a disillusioned outcast from society who seeks to kill himself. A group of monks carrying a body for burial in a torch-light procession runs into him and saves his life. Bandits attack them and take Wolfstein to an underground hideout…



Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets.