Skip to main content

The Mortal Immortal

 The Mortal Imortal by Mary Shelly could be considered science fiction for its time.  It’s about a heart broken alchemist’s assistant.  The occultist, well in the story he is an alchemist, is Cornelius Agripa.  Who was a real person in 15th century Germany.  And whose works Victor Frankenstein reads to get a better understanding of alchemy in the novel Frankenstein.

The assistant, spurned by his by his lover and her social circle is warned not to drink from the brewing elixir as it is a cure for broken heartedness.  Years later the assistant finds out that the potion has a different kind of power.

This short story was written later in Mary Shelly’s life.  Well after her husband Percy Shelly died in a boating accident.  Percy edited Frankenstein and so that work had a more lyric quality.  This story doesn’t have the poetic flourishes, but show’s in straight forward verse Mary’s understanding of human nature.


The Mortal Immortal was published in 1833.  The audioprogram I listened to for the story was narrated by BJ Harrison.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trends on Horror

Here are some trends I picked up on recently.
The big push for horror isn’t in October.  It’s June, July and August.  As someone who self publishes books, I’m not at all interested in what’s trending.  Mainly because I just need to write as many and publish as many books as possible.  Following trends gets thrown out the window when you want to publish four to six books a year.
I already knew that books and dvds, perhaps most streaming get released on Tuesdays.  At one time I knew why.
It was the whole business of everything getting shifted because of the pandemic that I realized that the push for horror was June through August.  Harrow the Ninth was supposed to be released in 25 June and now is 4 August.  The Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones was supposed to be released on 14 July and is now 1 September.  That was supposed to be my Birthday book this year.What I found out about Stephen Graham Jones is that a novel of his should have already been released, but it got pushed…
Post a Comment
Read more

my first and only read of The Deathly Hallows

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, I lived in Korea.  There is a fourteen hour time difference between Seoul and Omaha.  I went to the book store on the day it was released, like when the book store opened and bought my copy.  I started to read it on the bus ride home.  When I got to my apartment, I read it that day plus the day after.  I was determined to be the first in my family to have finished the book.  I ordered take out from the restaurant on the first floor of my apartment building and snacked on stuff I already had.  The book came out on a Saturday, which is unusual because books are normally released on a Tuesday.  I had no contact with the rest of the world, well accept for when I skyped my mother on our weekly calls.  I read the 700+ page book in two days.  And that was all I did that weekend.  When I finished book, I couldn't actually see that well, like everything was a blur for the two days that followed.  It was the last time I read a large book w…
Post a Comment
Read more

The Stone of Destiny

The other movie I watched this weekend was also a biopic: The Stone of Destiny.  It was about four Scottish college students who went to Westminster Abby and stole a six hundred pound stone, which was a Scottish treasure.  I enjoyed it.  A bunch of Scottish students banding together to steal a national treasure back from the English. The movie was based off of a book, the writer was the leader of this little band.  After the events of the book, he went on to become a lawyer.  They pull off the heist and a few months later they returned the stone.  All involved were accused of stealing the stone, but never charged.  England was worried that if they charged the students with the theft of the stone, there would be riots by the Scottish and so dropped the charges.
Post a Comment
Read more