The Last Man (Essential Gothic, SF & Dark Fantasy) - Softcover

Shelley, Mary

3.37

5,737 ratings by Goodreads

9780857756824: The Last Man (Essential Gothic, SF & Dark Fantasy)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0857756826 ISBN 13: 9780857756824

Publisher: Flame Tree 451, 2013

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A brilliant, early dystopian tale of classic science fiction. The Last Man is a powerful, post-apocalyptic tale and precursor to the much later science fiction novels of H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison amongst others. Overshadowed by the titanic success of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s neglected masterpiece tells of a future laid waste by plague. Lionel Varney, an indolent nobleman, is immune to the savage effects of the disease having been bitten by an early victim. Varney is forced to watch the long decline of civilisation as humanity sinks slowly into extinction.

FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and fantasy to science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic. Each book features a brand new biography and glossary of Literary, Gothic and Victorian terms.

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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 Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) was born in London, to her father the writer William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, an influential social campaigner who died 11 days after the birth of her daughter. Mary's early life was unconventional and by the age of 16 she eloped with the then-married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Amongst their friends were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron, the latter of whom offered the challenge to Mary to write a ghost story which later became Frankenstein.

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