The Last Man (Bantam Classic) - Softcover

Shelley, Mary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553214365 ISBN 13: 9780553214369

Publisher: Bantam Classics, 1994

Synopsis

The reprint of a neglected novel by the author of Frankenstein takes place in the twenty-first century, after a plague leaves only one man alive, a young Englishman and a onetime delinquent, to fathom his fate. Reprint.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Mary Shelley’s third published novel, The Last Man, is a disillusioned vision of the end of civilization, set in the twenty-first century. The book offers a sweeping account of war, plague, love, and desolation. It is the sort of apocalyptic vision that was widespread at the time, though Shelley’s treatment of the theme goes beyond the conventional; it is extraordinarily interesting and deeply moving.

If The Last Man is in some sense a “conventional” text of the period, it is also intensely personal in its origin; Shelley refers in her journal to the last man as her alter ego, “the last relic of a beloved race, my companions extinct before me.” The novel thus develops out of and contributes to a network of story and idea in which fantasy, allusion, convention, and autobiography are densely interwoven.

This new version of the first edition (1826) sets out to provide not only a thoroughly annotated text, but also contextual materials to help the reader acquire knowledge of the intellectual and literary milieu out of which the novel emerged. Appendices include material on “the last man” as early nineteenth-century hero, texts from the debate initiated by Malthus in 1798 about the adequacy of food supply to sustain human population, various accounts of outbreaks of plague, and Shelley’s poems representing her feelings after the death of her husband.

About the Author:

Mary Shelley was born on August 30, 1797, in London, England. She married poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she published her most famous novel, Frankenstein. She wrote several other books, including Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), the autobiographical Lodore (1835) and the posthumously published Mathilde. Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, in London, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam Classics
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0553214365
• ISBN 13: 9780553214369
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 499