Note: First published January 1877 in Appleton's Journal, new series, vol. 2, pp. 12-23, as by "Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Author of 'Frankenstein,' etc." Appleton's prefatory note: "This posthumous story by Mrs. Shelley has not before appeared in print. It was found among the unpublished papers of Leigh Hunt, and is authenticated by S. R. Townshend Mayer, Esq., editor of St. James's Magazine, London." Published in 1976, based on a manuscript, "and the present editor believes that the 1877 printing was based on this MS ...". Probably it was "written before the mid 1820s: i.e., before Mary Shelley began writing for the Annuals where restrictions of space disciplined her art to a greater extent." --Charles E. Robinson, 1976 collection "Notes", XXII, p. 395 (viewed at Amazon) 12,282 words per Project Gutenberg Australia version