Godwin, William St. Leon [A Tale of the Sixteenth Century ] (2  December  1799) G.G.J. and J. Robinson

Godwin's second novel features a sixteenth-century French nobleman, Count Reginald de St Leon, who is given the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life and attempts to put them to philanthropic ends. It includes a portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft as St Leon's wife, Marguerite de Damville. Published in four duodecimo volumes and sold at 16s. A second edition was issued in four volumes by the same publisher in 1800, a third edition in four volumes by W. Simpkin and R. Marshal in 1816 and a fourth in a single volume by H. Colburn and R. Bentley in 1831. It also inspired Bethlem Gabor (1807), a play by United Irishman John Daly Burk.