diff --git a/lib/markdown2.py b/lib/markdown2.py
index 9be0a262..eff02f6f 100755
--- a/lib/markdown2.py
+++ b/lib/markdown2.py
@@ -382,6 +382,9 @@ def __init__(
         self._outdent_re = re.compile(r'^(\t|[ ]{1,%d})' % tab_width, re.M)
         self.cli = cli
 
+        self._reset_tables()
+
+    def _reset_tables(self):
         self._escape_table = g_escape_table.copy()
         self._code_table = {}
         if "smarty-pants" in self.extras:
@@ -395,6 +398,7 @@ def reset(self):
         self.html_spans = {}
         self.list_level = 0
         self.extras = self._instance_extras.copy()
+        self._reset_tables()
         self._setup_extras()
         self._toc = []
 
diff --git a/test/test_reuse_instance.py b/test/test_reuse_instance.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0067de7f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/test_reuse_instance.py
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+"""Tests for reused Markdown instance state isolation (issue #763)."""
+
+import sys
+import time
+import unittest
+from pathlib import Path
+
+sys.path.insert(0, str(Path(__file__).parent.parent / "lib"))
+import markdown2  # noqa: E402
+
+
+class TestReuseInstanceIsolation(unittest.TestCase):
+    """Each convert() call on a reused instance must behave like a fresh one."""
+
+    def test_escape_table_reset_between_calls(self):
+        """Backslash-escaped text must not be affected by a previous convert()."""
+        md = markdown2.Markdown()
+        md.convert("[a link](https://example.com/page)")
+        result_reused = md.convert(r"Type \https://example.com/page to see it.")
+        result_fresh = markdown2.Markdown().convert(r"Type \https://example.com/page to see it.")
+        self.assertEqual(result_reused, result_fresh)
+
+    def test_code_table_reset_between_calls(self):
+        """Code spans from earlier documents must not leak into later ones."""
+        md = markdown2.Markdown()
+        md.convert("`first_code_span`")
+        # The hash for first_code_span must not persist and corrupt the new doc
+        result_reused = md.convert("plain `second_code_span` text")
+        result_fresh = markdown2.Markdown().convert("plain `second_code_span` text")
+        self.assertEqual(result_reused, result_fresh)
+
+    def test_performance_does_not_degrade(self):
+        """Processing time per document must not grow with the number of documents."""
+        md = markdown2.Markdown()
+        doc = "[link{}](https://example.com) `code{}`\n"
+
+        # warm up
+        for i in range(5):
+            md.convert(doc.format(i, i))
+
+        t_start_early = time.monotonic()
+        for i in range(5, 10):
+            md.convert(doc.format(i, i))
+        t_early = time.monotonic() - t_start_early
+
+        # process 50 more documents to accumulate stale table entries
+        for i in range(10, 60):
+            md.convert(doc.format(i, i))
+
+        t_start_late = time.monotonic()
+        for i in range(60, 65):
+            md.convert(doc.format(i, i))
+        t_late = time.monotonic() - t_start_late
+
+        # With the fix, late processing is not significantly slower than early.
+        # Use max(..., 1e-5) so the comparison is valid when both times round
+        # to 0.0 on fast CI runners (Windows).
+        self.assertLess(t_late, max(t_early, 1e-5) * 10,
+                        f"Performance degraded: early={t_early*1000:.1f}ms late={t_late*1000:.1f}ms")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    unittest.main()