The story was recently unearthed by Andrew F. Gulli, managing editor of Strand ("the magazine for mystery & short story lovers"), according to the Associated Press.

Speaking in the first person, the story's nearly-blind main character tells how he gets an eyeball transplant, only to discover that he has received the eye of a murderer, and begins to see visions of the previous owner's horrendous crimes. He demands that the operation be reversed, even if it means he will be condemned to sightlessness.

"It is true that the pleasures of the blind are few and frugal," Williams wrote. "They live apart from the world and participate little in its affairs. But I do not regret that choice I made the day I fell, raving mad with horror, to the floor of the oculist's office. Oh, never! Far, far better to be blind than to see with the eye that saw death!"

Williams occasionally dabbled in the realm of horror during his later playwriting career, notably in his 1958 play Suddenly Last Summer, in which a gay man is killed and cannibalized by a group of young men he tried to lure into sex.

Williams' plays include A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie and many others. To read more about the story, visit the Strand Magazine website.