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The Last Man

By Mary Shelley
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Brief Description
The Last Man by Mary Shelley is a landmark novel that invented the human extinction genre and initiated climate fiction. It imagines a world where newly forged communities and reverence for nature rise from the ashes of a pandemic-ravaged society. This edition is now available for... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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"First published in Great Britain by Henry Colburn in 1836"--Title page verso.

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The Last Man by Mary Shelley is a landmark novel that invented the human extinction genre and initiated climate fiction. It imagines a world where newly forged communities and reverence for nature rise from the ashes of a pandemic-ravaged society. This edition is now available for the first time in Penguin Classics, with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit.

Written while Mary Shelley was in a self-imposed lockdown after the loss of her husband and children—amidst intersecting crises such as the climate-changing Mount Tambora eruption and a raging cholera outbreak—The Last Man (1826) stands as the first end-of-mankind novel. It is an early work of climate fiction and a prophetic depiction of environmental change.

Set in the late twenty-first century, the novel tells of a deadly pandemic that leaves a lone survivor. It follows his journey through a post-apocalyptic world, devoid of humanity and reclaimed by nature. Rather than succumb to despair, Shelley uses the now-ubiquitous end-times plot to imagine a new world where freshly formed communities and alternative ways of being stand in contrast to self-important politicians serving corrupt institutions, allowing nature to reign mightily over humanity. This provides a timely message for our current era of climate collapse and political upheaval.

Brimming with political intrigue and love triangles involving characters based on Percy Shelley and the scandal-dogged poet Lord Byron, the novel also addresses partisan dysfunction, imperial warfare, refugee crises, and economic collapse. It brings the legacy of Shelley's radically progressive parents, William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, to bear on present-day questions about creating a better world less centred around "man".

As Shelley's second major novel after Frankenstein, The Last Man casts a half-sceptical eye on romantic ideals of utopian perfection and natural plenitude, while looking forward to a greener future where our species develops new relationships with non-human life and the planet.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780143137900

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 05 September 2024

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 20.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 195.0mm

Weight: 349g

Pages: 592

Collections

Classic Fiction Dystopian Fiction Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Mary Shelley Penguin Books Penguin Classics Sci-Fi & Fantasy Science Fiction

About the Author

Mary Shelley was born in London in 1797, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, famous radical writers of the day. She is the author of Frankenstein (1818), The Last Man (1826), and other works. John Havard (introduction) teaches at the State University of New York, Binghamton, where his work focuses on 18th-century and Romantic literature and political culture. His essays about literature and politics have appeared in The New Rambler, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books. Rebecca Solnit (foreword) is the author of more than 20 books, including Orwell's Roses, Recollections of My Nonexistence, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, and Men Explain Things to Me. She is a regular contributor to The Guardian and other publications.

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