The Up-to-Date Sorcerer is a science-fiction short story by Isaac Asimov.
A standalone story, it was first published in the July 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was later collected in 1969's Nightfall and Other Stories.
Summary[]
Professor Wellington Johns, an endocrinologist, creates a love philtre he calls the "amatogenic cortical principle." The potion causes anyone who consumes it to fall helplessly in love with the first person they see. Two of his students, Alice Sanger and Alexander Dexter, accidentally take the potion and become entangled in philtre-induced promises of marriage with the wrong partners.
The narrator proposes a theory about the Gilbert and Sullivan opera The Sorcerer, suggesting that the original ending was changed for Victorian audiences. He believes the spell was meant to be broken by the affected couples marrying, as the potion has no effect on married people, who are portrayed as prone to argument. He suggests applying this solution to their modern predicament.
The couples who were affected by the philtre marry. As theorized, the spell is broken, and the effect of the potion is canceled. This allows the marriages to be annulled, freeing Alice and Alexander to marry their original, true loves.