The Mortal Immortal

Winzy was not aware of the complete purpose of the elixir, but he chose to drink it when he felt Bertha had left him for Albert Hoffer, a favorite of her protectress.

Winzy also discovers that he feels the effects of old age taking a physical toll on him despite the fact that his outward appearance continues to be that of a twenty-year-old.

The story was commissioned in 1833 for The Keepsake, a prominent literary annual which married short fiction and poetry with high-quality engraved artworks.

It was one of a number of similar commissions; Shelley sold twenty-one stories to annuals over a seventeen-year period, with more than half of those in The Keepsake.

Godwin's novel had established the idea of a tragic immortal protagonist, possessed of exceptional powers but unable to use them well.

[4] Another source can be found in Apuleius' The Golden Ass, a second-century Latin satire, in which a miraculous transformation also relies on an accidental potion; Shelley is known to have translated it, at the instigation of her husband, in 1817.

[11][12] A sequel to the story was written by Gary Jennings in 1973, published in Fantasy and Science Fiction as "Ms. Found in an Oxygen Bottle".

The story uses themes and motifs common to Romantic Gothic fiction, including immortality and the figure of the Wandering Jew, thwarted love, and alchemy.

Despite the popularity of The Keepsake and the status of its contributing authors, the fiction and poetry it contains were seen as unimpressive by contemporary reviewers and are still largely disregarded by literary critics today.

[13] Some modern critics have described it, along with the other Keepsake stories, simply as commercial hackwork,[14] while others have seen it as highlighting her "gift for humour",[15] and as a "vigorously inventive" quasi-autobiographical piece.