The Touchstone

Having frittered away his family's fortune in Paris, the profligate Guido il Cortese incurs the wrath of his future father-in-law and finds himself in exile from his native Genoa and harbouring plans for revenge. After a mighty storm, he sees a mysterious, misshapen creature emerging from the sea, with whom he makes an infernal bargain to exchange bodies, with momentous consequences. First published in 1831 and here presented with the supernatural stories `The Evil Eye' and `The Immortal Mortal', the chilling Gothic tale `Transformation' is a paragon of the genre by the author of Frankenstein.