St Leon (1799), Godwin's second novel, is a work of challenging ambition. Like his first, Caleb Williams (1794), it is a confessional tale of obsession and spiralling pursuit. In St Leon the emphasis is on the individual's powerlessness in the face of momentous historical change. Set during the Protestant Reformation, St Leon tells the harrowing tale of an exiled French aristocrat who is given the secrets of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. His attempts to use these gifts to benefit humanity lead only to disaster. Plunged into self-destructive isolation, he wanders through the...