The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham by H. G. Wells (The Idler, May 1896) opens with an old man called Elvesham offering a young medical student called Eden the chance to become his heir. After several medical examinations demanded by Elvesham, and (unusual) discussions about Eden assuming Elvesham’s identity after the latter dies, there is a celebratory dinner one evening. During this, the old man sprinkles a pinkish powder on their after dinner liqueurs.
When Eden later walks home he feels quite odd, and experiences phantom memories when he looks at the shops that line the street. That evening he takes another powder given to him by Elvesham before retiring. Later he awakes from a strange dream and feels even more disoriented, eventually realising that, not only is he in a strange room, but (spoiler) he is in Elvesham’s body!
The rest of the story limns Eden’s horror at this turn of events and his subsequent attempts to extricate himself from his predicament. This involves, among other things, a search of the rooms and desks at the property in the hope that he can find a way to contact Elvesham (via his solicitor, etc.). Eden doesn’t find anything of use, although he does find volumes of notes about the psychology of memory along with pages of ciphers and symbols. Then, after he flies into a rage and is put under permanent restraint by Elvesham’s staff and doctors, he finds a bottle of poison. After writing an account of what has happened to him, Eden takes his own life.
There is a final postscript which describes the finding of “Elvesham’s” manuscript, and the fact that “Eden” never survived to inherit Elvesham’s fortune (he is knocked down by a cab, presumably to comply with Victorian morality).
This is an okay if dated piece, and it briefly comes alive in the section where the young man is trapped in the old man’s body (a piece of body horror that will resonate with many older readers who think this is what has happened to them):
I tottered to the glass and saw—Elvesham’s face! It was none the less horrible because I had already dimly feared as much. He had already seemed physically weak and pitiful to me, but seen now, dressed only in a coarse flannel nightdress that fell apart and showed the stringy neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot describe its desolate decrepitude. The hollow cheeks, the straggling tail of dirty grey hair, the rheumy bleared eyes, the quivering, shrivelled lips, the lower displaying a gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible dark gums showing. You who are mind and body together at your natural years, cannot imagine what this fiendish imprisonment meant to me. To be young, and full of the desire and energy of youth, and to be caught, and presently to be crushed in this tottering ruin of a body. . . . p. 136-137 (The Dark Mind, edited by Damon Knight, 1965)
**+ (Average to Good). 6,850 words.