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The Last Man

3.28 of 5 stars 3.28 · rating details · 884 ratings · 132 reviews

A futuristic story of tragic love and of the gradual extermination of the human race by plague, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's most important novel after Frankenstein. With intriguing portraits of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, the novel offers a vision of the future that expresses a reaction against Romanticism, and demonstrates the failure of the imagination and of...more

Paperback, 512 pages

Published September 10th 1998 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1826)

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Jul 28, 2010 Keely rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, post-apocalyptic, reviewed, uk-and-ireland, plague

I don't really like reading, which must strain credulity, since I devote so much of my time and energy to doing it. But reading, for me, is never an easy thing. Only rarely do I get caught up and find myself turning pages heedlessly, plunging into the text. More often, I am well aware of what page I'm on and how many pages until this chapter ends.

The reading itself is slow and ponderous, winding a sinuous path through the book, and this leisurely pace always sets my mind to wandering, looking fo...more

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Mar 04, 2008 Nicole Hogan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: absolute-must-re-read

Oh, The Last Man! One of the (many)books perpetually on my re-read list.

This later work from Shelly shows her talent as a mature innovative writer and secures a literary legacy outside of her husband's shadow. Written four years after Percy's death and some ten years after the publication of Frankenstein, Shelly weaves a fantastic version of the end of the world in the year 2100. Told from the perspective of the only survivor of a devastating plague that sniffs out humanity, the story subtly inc...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Estrella CardonaGamio rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: clásicos

Mucho más de un siglo ha transcurrido hasta que por fin a Mary Shelley se la ha empezado a conocer no sólo como la autora de Frankenstein, o la esposa de Percival Shelley o la hija de María Wollstonecraft y William Godwin, ahora también se la está descubriendo como una sobrecogedora profetisa que sin abandonar esa licencia que otorga la ciencia-ficción, se permitió en su momento, no sé si porque quiso escribir una novela más que le permitiese subvenir a sus necesidades económicas, hablarnos del...more

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May 29, 2011 Andrew Breslin rated it 1 of 5 stars

I desperately tried to convince myself that I didn’t loathe this, but I’m just not that good a liar. I saw right through my shameless chicanery. It was so obvious. Remind me never to play poker with myself.

With all due respect, I firmly believe that all the people who gave this book rave reviews could take themselves to the cleaners at Texas Hold-Em. Really, they could win the shirt off their own backs, they are just so good at self-deception. I envy them.

Frankenstein, arguably my favorite book...more I desperately tried to convince myself that I didn’t loathe this, but I’m just not that good a liar. I saw right through my shameless chicanery. It was so obvious. Remind me never to play poker with myself.

With all due respect, I firmly believe that all the people who gave this book rave reviews could take themselves to the cleaners at Texas Hold-Em. Really, they could win the shirt off their own backs, they are just so good at self-deception. I envy them.

Frankenstein, arguably my favorite book of all time, is so staggeringly good that I physically tremble when I read it, and I have read it over and over. So yes, I went into this with high expectations. I did not expect it to be as good as Frankenstein. I did expect it to be marginally more entertaining than reading a telephone book, but I was disappointed.

Granted: there are beautifully written passages. Prose and poetry weave together in a seamless lyrical ballet, and it is nothing less than sublimely elegant. But there’s a reason I read Mary Shelley and not Percy Shelley. Because I am interested in fiction, not in poetry. There is a story buried underneath hundreds of pages of scintillating, mellifluous verse. But it moves at the approximate pace that continents drift.

There are actual poetic passages all through the novel, just sprinkled in liberally right in the middle of chapters, where they might have proven highly distracting, if there were some sort of story being told, which, fortunately, did not present a problem. These are quoted from famous poets, all from sometime before the early 19th century, of course. Which immediately implies that not a single poet worth quoting arises throughout the rest of the 19th, the 20th and the 21st centuries. (A sentiment with which I might be inclined to agree, but then again, I’m not a big fan of poetry that does not involve Nantucket.)

Last summer I was part of a panel discussion of the five essential science fiction authors. Mary Shelley topped my list, because I feel that she essentially invented the genre, half a century before Wells and Verne. She was the first writer to take the cutting edge science of her own day, and envision the philosophical implications of a rational extrapolation of existing technology. It was such an impressive leap of imagination that right now, as I’m typing this review, I just want to reread Frankenstein yet again.

It is not accurate to say that the picture Shelley paints of the late 21st century includes no allusions whatsoever to technological advances. There were two. In the first, she describes 21st century air travel, which consists of very fast balloons. Fair enough. In the second, she makes a brief, vague reference to improved methods in agricultural and industrial production. But that’s it. She foresaw artificial intelligence but not light-bulbs? Cars? Recording sound? Some means by which people communicate at a distance? Was that really so hard to imagine, Mary? You wrote Frankenstein!

Her time was slightly before that of Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, and so she couldn’t have been expected to know much about the germ theory of disease. But while the world slowly succumbed to a deadly plague of unprecedented virulence, none of the characters, essentially the leaders of the free world, the Lord Protector of the most powerful nation on Earth and his inner circle, none of them think for a moment “let’s get some scientists to look into this!” No, the Lord Protector’s actions in this moment of crisis are essentially limited to ensuring that the theaters remain open to keep the nation’s spirits up.

Isaac Asimov (my other favorite science fiction writer) once noted that when science fiction writers had exhausted ideas or at least grown bored with exploring speculative developments in technology, they would turn (as he did) to social science fiction, centered not on gadgets and gizmos, but instead toward an examination of the progression of societies themselves. Shelley does this, to a degree, but the depth of her vision is disappointingly myopic. She doesn’t predict grand sweeping changes in society over the course of 300 years. Instead, she is so bold to suggest that by the end of the 21st century, England might relinquish hereditary monarchs in favor of a small group of privileged elitist nobles electing the same guy who would have inherited the throne. For the daughter of two of the most radical political philosophers of her day, I expected a slightly more dramatic prognostication of political upheaval.

None of this is going to diminish the high opinion I have of Mary Shelley. I remain steadfast in ranking her as one of the most influential novelists ever. And even while I was bored to tears and crushed with disappointment as I trudged through this elegantly dreary, beautifully dull tome, I still took note of how majestically all her words were put together as they went absolutely nowhere. I only wished that she would not have tried so hard to emulate her husband and his poems, all of which together could not hold a candle to her first novel. I wish she would have stuck with crafting imaginative stories in which visionary ideas are examined, raising deep philosophical questions, while simultaneously keeping the reader on the edge of his seat. Percy had far too great an impact on her if you ask me, and Mary would have done well to seek out some different literary influences. I wish she would have read Frankenstein.(less)

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Apr 19, 2013 Anna rated it 3 of 5 stars

As one of the Romantic period's lesser known works, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's often overlooked autobiographical apocalyptic novel. The novel is full of complexities and contradictions; a genderless narrator finds fragments of the story of Lionel Verney, the last survivor of a devastating plague, the futuristic world contains very few technological or political advancements, and the novel often gives way to lamenting prophetic passages, to name a few.
Usually, this novel is labeled as Shelle...more As one of the Romantic period's lesser known works, The Last Man is Mary Shelley's often overlooked autobiographical apocalyptic novel. The novel is full of complexities and contradictions; a genderless narrator finds fragments of the story of Lionel Verney, the last survivor of a devastating plague, the futuristic world contains very few technological or political advancements, and the novel often gives way to lamenting prophetic passages, to name a few.
Usually, this novel is labeled as Shelley's portrait of her late husband, Percy Shelley, as seen in the character of Adrian. In fact, the novel contains several biographical portraits that are not always as discreet as Adrian. The Lord Raymond of the novel follows the life pattern of Lord Byron in real life almost exactly, Clara represents Shelley's daughter of the same name, and both Verney and Perdita contain elements of Shelley herself.
The novel itself is not the supreme example of polished writing. Throughout the chapters, there are random passages of emotional prose, the passages of time are cloudy as whole years are often skipped over in paragraphs, and there is a lack of action/dialog in critical portions of the story. Overall, I would say that these faults are the result of the novel being more of a second draft print, not a final story. I think if Shelley would have taken her time to slightly disconnect from the novel emotionally and let the story tell itself through dialog instead of rushing it off, this book would have been more of a success overall.
However, on the positive side, the novel clearly critiques the Romantic ideals of overt emotionalism, beautiful solitude, revolutionary rebellion, and ultimate class equalization. Following the "spontaneous overflow[s] of powerful feelings" leads to the grave. Solitude becomes frightening and dangerous. Revolution leads to the spread of the Plague, and the Plague itself is the great equalizer, though the disease is never actually fully explained.
The novel contains several more complexities and is worthy of a deep reading and a full analysis. I enjoyed reading it, and I am looking forward to dissecting portions of it for my literary analysis paper. (less)

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May 25, 2010 Margaret rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-literature, fantasy-and-science-fiction, romantics, authors-qrs

In the 21st century, the British monarchy has given up the throne, and the country is a republic. When Lionel Verney comes to be involved with the ruling elite, he is first swept up in romantic and political intrigues and finally swept out of England altogether when an apocalyptic kills nearly everyone. Eventually, everyone but Lionel does die, and he writes his memoirs, in the form of The Last Man. (I would apologize for the spoiler there, but even the title of the book makes it clear what's go...more

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Sep 29, 2008 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: scififantasy, longeighteenthcentury

Pro - the final volume. It's amazing. Alone, it would get at least one more star. The mood reminded me a lot of the short story, I am Legend, and it handled the apocalypse in a way that seemed so contemporary. This isn't always a plus for me, but I really enjoyed it here.

Pro - the notes, appendices, etc. As usual, Broadview Press put together an incredible edition. Alone, this part would get five stars.

Con - the first two volumes. I like romances, especially ones in this psuedo-17th-century sty...more

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Feb 04, 2009 Jeff rated it 3 of 5 stars

Though I have a penchant for non-canonical books of canonical authors, Shelley's The Last Man is much more laborious than say Frankenstein. It's nearyly 500 pages long and my edition is roughly 8 point font, so I found myself walking around in a blurred stupor the remainder of any day I read. Still, the book is written almost entirely in poetic verse, so while the reader wonders when the 18% of the novel that actually makes up the plot (and rest assured, I'm not a plot driven writer/reader) will...more

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Feb 03, 2013 Gentleman-and-scholar rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this as I really like dystopic novels and thought that I could try one of the very first of it's kind.

The problem with this book is that it focuses too much into... nothing. The prose -it's only strong point- as interesting as it is initially becomes tiresome after a while, even more as the story seems not to go anywhere interesting for the first two volumes. By the time the final volume (which is the most interesting) starts I had lost interest both in the characters (a bunch o...more

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Nov 29, 2012 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

THE LAST MAN. (1826; this ed. 2012). Mary Shelley. **.
Most of us have read Frankenstein by Shelley (born Mary Wolstoncraft Godwin, 1797-1851), but most of us haven’t come across her other best seller of the time, “The Last Man.” This novel is an early rendition of ‘an end of the world scenario’ and would be followed by many more like it. It was originally issued as a three-volume novel, but, in today’s world even a mediocre editor would have cut it down to one volume. It is set in the 21st cent...more THE LAST MAN. (1826; this ed. 2012). Mary Shelley. **.
Most of us have read Frankenstein by Shelley (born Mary Wolstoncraft Godwin, 1797-1851), but most of us haven’t come across her other best seller of the time, “The Last Man.” This novel is an early rendition of ‘an end of the world scenario’ and would be followed by many more like it. It was originally issued as a three-volume novel, but, in today’s world even a mediocre editor would have cut it down to one volume. It is set in the 21st century, and starts off in 2091. I’m not sure why she decided to call it a novel of the future. There is nothing of the future in it. Transportation is still by horse and carriage – although there is an air balloon used for long distance travel. Battles are still fought with 19th century weapons. There are no other projections of anything that smacks of modern in the book. It starts out in England, which has abolished the monarchy and is now ruled by a “Protector.” The central character and narrator of the novel, who must also be ‘the last man’ since who else could have written the book? is Lionel Verney. He and his family live just outside of London and are fairly well off. We meet his circle of friends and the rest of his family. That’s mostly what Volume I is about. In Volume II, we learn of a war between Greece and Turkey. Several of the characters we have met get involved in that war for no good reason other than seeking self-glory. Finally in Volume III, we learn that a ‘plague’ is slowly creeping across Europe. It is deadly, leaving no one who is stricken to survive. Whole countries contract the disease. We don’t know much about the disease or what it might be other than the fact that it is terminally deadly. We learn, too, that other countries of the world have contracted the disease too, although we don’t know how it is spread. Medical science, even in the 21st century, is at a loss. As you might suspect, our narrator is the ‘last man,’ choosing to spend the rest of his life – for as long as it might be – in Italy. He got there by migrating with those few of his family and friends left alive when they went looking for other survivors. During the course of this migration, we get the Cook’s tour of Europe. That’s good for one-hundred pages or so. When you finally get to the end of this long novel, you have to ask yourself why you stuck it out. I don’t have a good answer. At least now I can say, when “Frankenstein” comes up: “Have you read ‘The Last Man’?” In today’s world, a really good editor would have taken the one-volume condensation of our earlier mediocre editor and finally condensed it down to a short story.
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Nov 27, 2011 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1800-s, prose

A profoundly sad reaction to Romanticism, initially vilified, mocked, and essentially blacklisted, before being recovered and championed in the 1960s.

It's overlong, the language is annoyingly exalted, most of the characters are flat, and there's a lot of rubbish. Sounds tedious? It sort of is. This is definitely one of the few examples I've encountered of an excellent literary work that for much of its padded length feels somewhat interminable, but that emerges in foresight as a remarkable, dee...more

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Jul 19, 2010 Douglas Summers.Stay rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 22, 2010 Surreysmum rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1981, general-fiction, dystopia, library

[These notes were made in 1981.:] I enjoyed this novel, but [my professor and eventual thesis supervisor:] Jay Macpherson's right - it can't really be called a Gothic, although the situation must have seemed sufficiently "improbable" to readers of the period. Although Mary has an irritating tendency to launch into flights of rhetoric at moments which would be more poignant if treated simply, she has nonetheless thought deeply about the implications of being the last human being - of seeing all t...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Abailart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Most unusual. High-blown prose to say the least. A futuristic 'science fiction' novel with a hint of eternal recurrence and plenty of existential angst. Obliquely, references to Shelley and circle.

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Jul 21, 2012 Christopher Conlon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Every once in a while in my reading life I’ve come across a book that has taken me completely by surprise—one that forces me to inhale deeply at the end and then, exhaling, utter an overwhelmed “Wow.”

“The Last Man” is such a book for me.

Despite my love of Mary Shelley’s great “Frankenstein,” I went into “The Last Man” without much hope, based on its relative obscurity as well as some of the slams it has received right here on Goodreads. Yet I was awed by the power of this story. It’s true that i...more Every once in a while in my reading life I’ve come across a book that has taken me completely by surprise—one that forces me to inhale deeply at the end and then, exhaling, utter an overwhelmed “Wow.”

“The Last Man” is such a book for me.

Despite my love of Mary Shelley’s great “Frankenstein,” I went into “The Last Man” without much hope, based on its relative obscurity as well as some of the slams it has received right here on Goodreads. Yet I was awed by the power of this story. It’s true that if today’s readers go into it expecting, say, “I Am Legend” or “The Stand,” they’re going to be disappointed (just as readers expecting the fast pacing and graphic violence of contemporary horror novels are invariably disappointed by “Frankenstein”). “The Last Man,” set in the late 21st century, is a long novel, and in some ways it’s unfair to characterize it simply as “apocalyptic,” though it is certainly that. Shelley spends the entire first volume of this 1826 triple decker on developing her characters: the narrator, Lionel Verney; his sister, Perdita; Adrian, the Earl of Windsor, who rejects the machinations of his mother in trying to secure for him the British throne; and Raymond, who eventually becomes Lord Protector of England in its new, republican form of government. Readers complain about this first part of the novel, but for anyone accustomed to the fiction of the period, it all reads just fine; my interest held firmly throughout the entirety of the first volume, even though the coming plague is never mentioned.

In Part 2, events grow darker. The plague begins to receive glancing, foreboding references, and by the halfway point, the devastation has reached England. Suffice it to say that things go downhill from there.

Part 3, the section that even people who dislike the novel as a whole are willing to praise, is indeed magnificent, as the human race begins to die out. Any number of indelible images arise in this section, and the final pages of the novel are both unbearably sad and unforgettably beautiful—writing as powerful as the hallucinatory final chapters of “Frankenstein.”

Does the novel have flaws? Yes. Some of the characters (not all, as a few reviewers claim) are flat, the dialogue is often impossibly literary, and there are occasional jumps of logic or credibility in the development of the plot. (All of these problems, it should be pointed out, are also present in “Frankenstein.”) Yet, at least for me, they detract little from the sweeping grandeur and tragic power of “The Last Man.” To think that this book was published in 1826 is simply mind-boggling, and perhaps its failure at the time shouldn’t be a surprise. (It received extremely harsh reviews, one critic referring to the author’s “diseased imagination”; despite this, it remained one of Shelley’s favorites among her own works). “The Last Man” quickly fell out of print, and would not be rediscovered until the Cold War era of the 1960s, when no one could any longer dismiss as “diseased” its horrifying images of the end of humanity.

“The Last Man” in astonishing novel, one that deserves to be far better known than it is.
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Dec 20, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Rabid Groupies of Romantic Poets?

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Kandice's Gift

Shelves: classics, fiction, literary-fiction, novels, horror, science-fiction, romance

Looking at my review of Shelley's Frankenstein, I noted I had written that the "flowery, melodramatic style sometimes made me roll my eyes." But I also remember by and large enjoying that book, and being impressed by the play of ideas and imagination. Enough I had wanted to read this other book by Shelley, the other one that could also be called science fiction (her other works of fiction mainly being historical fiction.) After all, Mary Shelley is often hailed as the mother of science fiction,...more Looking at my review of Shelley's Frankenstein, I noted I had written that the "flowery, melodramatic style sometimes made me roll my eyes." But I also remember by and large enjoying that book, and being impressed by the play of ideas and imagination. Enough I had wanted to read this other book by Shelley, the other one that could also be called science fiction (her other works of fiction mainly being historical fiction.) After all, Mary Shelley is often hailed as the mother of science fiction, or maybe the grandmother, with Jules Verne and H.G. Wells as the proud papas. And here is this tale of the end of the world, or of humanity at least due to a pandemic, set centuries after her time (though in our current century.) I thought it suggestive that the great work of Olaf Stapledon, Last and First Men, (which I have yet to read, but is considered one of the great and influential science fiction works) had a similar title. Well, this was wretched. I doubt it had much influence on later science fiction or post-apocalyptic works. Apparently the idea of "the last man" or "lastness" had been common in the decades before publication and was nothing new. The Last Man was badly received when published in 1826 and went out of print for more than a century. Sometimes even bad books are worth reading for the influence they've had on culture, literature or history. Unlike the case with Frankenstein, I doubt that's the case here.

Intrinsic value? Oh dear God, I don't even know where to begin detailing the problems with this novel and how much I lament that trees died in its name. First, the very first rule of fiction is, "show, don't tell." The tell in this novel is mammoth. You know how you can tell? Flipping through pages you'll see little dialogue. In the midst of reading this I dipped into Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) to remind myself that yes, they did already know how to write novels back then and there it was when I glanced down on the page--lively, plausible, complex characterizations, witty dialogue, wise and insightful comments about human nature--well integrated into the narrative--and restrained emotion. Mary Shelley on the other hand has the most emo characters I've ever read--even by the standards of the at times overwrought Frankenstein. I never thought of Brits as a weepy people, not even in the romantic era but Good God. And the exclamation points, the capitalizations, the classical metaphors, the archaic language, the frequent quotation of poetry. Let's have a short sample:

In the deepest fountain of my heart the pulses were stirred; around, above, beneath, the clinging Memory as a cloak enwrapt me. In no one moment of coming time did I feel as I had done in time gone by. The spirit of Idris hovered in the air I breathed; her eyes were ever and for ever bent on mine; her remembered smile blinded my faint gaze, and caused me to walk as one, not in eclipse, not in darkness and vacancy--but in a new and brilliant light, too novel, too dazzling for my human senses. On every leaf, on every small division of the universe (as on the hyacinth ac is engraved) was imprinted the talisman of my existence--SHE LIVES! SHE IS!

That was chosen from a random page--most of it is... well worse. And though this is set over 250 years in the future, at the end of the 21st century, there is no imaginative speculation about the future on display here. There are balloons for fast travel--an invention from the century before the book was published. And Britain is a republic with an elected Lord Protector. That's it. Otherwise this is a decidedly pre-industrial setting with no discernible social differences from the time the novel was written. Never mind cars or trains, this is a world still connected by horse and sail. It might be said that it was easier for Verne and Wells writing in the midst of the Industrial Revolution to imagine voyages through time and under the sea and into space. Maybe so, but I did expect better from the author of Frankenstein.

The book does have one redeeming quality that kept me somewhat interested, especially through the first third. Both the back cover of the book and the introduction reveals this is somewhat a roman-a-clef. Volume 1, the first third of the novel, is basically a domestic drama--no apocalypse in sight--but I did find there the dynamics of the characters interesting in a voyeuristic sense. Mary Shelley wasn't just the author of Frankenstein. She was the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the great English Romantic Poets, and they were close to another of the great English poets--Lord Byron. Supposedly the character of Adrian is based on Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Raymond is a portrait of Lord Byron. (If true-to-life then Bryon was a prime jerk.) If you have the Oxford edition, I don't recommend reading the introduction before the main text, since it gives away the entire plot--but what it did detail of Mary Shelley's life and circle did have some fascinating parallels in the book. The few times I felt moved by the book was when I felt I could read on the page how Mary Shelley must herself have felt like the last human on the earth after the death of so many she had held dear not long before she wrote the novel. The isolation at the end of the novel and hint of hope really is well done. In fact, the last chapter was great--it just came 450 pages too late. So if you're fascinated by these literary figures, you might find (well, some of) this book of interest: otherwise, I'd leave this novel to the academics.(less)

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Mar 08, 2013 Marty rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: battle-of-the-bookshelves-3, 2013-reading-challenge

It's hard to conjure up a more despondent vision of the late 21st century than Mary Shelley's in The Last Man. We know from the start that there will be no happy ending to this book, as narrated by the main character, Lionel Verney. Once the stage for ultimate devastation is set, Shelley builds the tension to an almost unbearable pitch by delaying the inevitable through a series of personal, national and world-wide disasters. These she sharply contrasts with briefly idyllic periods of the plot,...more

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Jun 23, 2012 Simon Dicky rated it 3 of 5 stars

"A post-apocalyptic novel written by the author of 'Frankenstein'? Sign me up!"

Or so I thought as I dove into the book Shelley referred to as the one she most enjoyed writing. It didn't take long, however, for me to realize that this was going to be a far cry from the hyper-realistic, detail-driven catastrophes that have sprouted in modern literature like weeds. Indeed, Shelley appears to have put virtually no thought into the workings of a plague-ridden world set at the end of the century we're...more "A post-apocalyptic novel written by the author of 'Frankenstein'? Sign me up!"

Or so I thought as I dove into the book Shelley referred to as the one she most enjoyed writing. It didn't take long, however, for me to realize that this was going to be a far cry from the hyper-realistic, detail-driven catastrophes that have sprouted in modern literature like weeds. Indeed, Shelley appears to have put virtually no thought into the workings of a plague-ridden world set at the end of the century we're currently doing our best to enjoy. Horses are still the only means of conveyance on land, flimsy wooden ships still take their chances upon the ocean, and battles are fought with cannons and swords. The lack of imagination put into this soon-to-be ruined future by one of our great writers was staggering. To say I was disappointed would have been a textbook example of understatement.

I pinned my hopes for this book on the arrival of the cataclysm that throws Shelley's decidedly underwhelming future into chaos and decline. I was hoping for a tale of despair that would make Cormac McCarthy himself bite his knuckles in tearful rage. And so I waited. And waited. And...waited. Finally, about two-thirds of the way through this gargantuan tale, people start dropping. And dropping. And dropping. I can assure you, the title of this book is quite literal. In the end, Shelley leaves you with no nugget of enlightenment, no uplifting revelation about human nature in hard times, and no hope. To be honest, she leaves you with nothing. Instead of being decimated but showing its true worth in the handful of survivors left to inherit the earth, humanity dies alone in a hospital bed.

Sounds disappointing, no? Well it is, sort of. If you take this story at its word, you're never going to get anything out of it, considering Shelley doesn't leave you with anything. It wasn't until I could see the end on the horizon that I realized Shelley had written something completely different from the book I was reading. This isn't a story about an invincible plague ravaging an unimaginative future; it's an autobiography.

When Shelley began writing 'The Last Man', all of the giants in her life were dead and gone. She had buried her husband, said goodbye to the redoubtable Lord Byron, and lost a great many children. In a very real way, she was alone. The pain and loneliness of being the sole survivor of her circle at such a young age (she had not quite reached 30) were channelled into 'The Last Man', and this realization makes the book among the more haunting I've read. This book is very much a case of reading between the lines and finding a great deal of value there.

So, to make a long story short, if you want an intriguing 19th century take on a genre that's extremely popular now, 'The Last Man' couldn't be more of a let-down. When read in this context, it actually borders on horrible. If, however, you're interested in seeing how a phenomenal writer can subtly weave the crushing calamities of her own life into a seemingly unrelated tale, and in doing so give you a startlingly clear window into experiences that were felt almost two hundred years ago, I urge you to give 'The Last Man' a try. (less)

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Aug 17, 2012 Renee rated it 2 of 5 stars

I believe this book was supposed to take place in 2025. I found it amusing considering there were no trains, telephones or even telegraphs. Shelley apparently didn't have any ideas on what the future would look like other than the fact that the monarchy would be gone. It seemed to draw heavily on Defoe's Journal of a Plague Year for the reaction of citizens, country vs. city life amid a plague, and life in London during a plague. Despite being titled "Last Man," the majority of the very long, dr...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Esteban Gordon rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very, very tricky book to review this. The first half or so is so utterly dreadful that a thousand times I had to resist tossing it in the nearest garbage can. And yet, after finishing it, I was ready to cry to Mont Blanc that it was a masterpiece. I would contend that it is NOT science fiction as Shelley shows, or shews, no desire to imagine a futuristic world but merely changes the date a few hundred years in the future with no technological or political advancement whatsoever. The novel, in...more

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Sep 27, 2011 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the nuttiest books I have ever read. Shelley's novel (written 8 years after "Frankenstein") takes place in the years 2073 to 2100. Shelley doesn't really envision any technological changes (most of the characters are farmers or shepherds, and everyone still gets around by horse). The first third of the book is something of a romance, concerning the narrator, the son of the abdicated king, and the Byronic warrior-hero, Lord Raymond. A third of the way through, though, reports of plague bre...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Chris LaHatte rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: f-sf

This was an unusual book. Although it fits into the f/sf category-its an end of the world by plague story, it is set in the 21st and 22nd century, but without any substantial advances-the most sophisticated transport is by balloon and they still use steam and sail. And there are no medical scientists trying to avert the plague. The characters are all of noble birth and therefore all heroes, even where they are abandoned as children but subsequently discovered to be from aristocrat families. Engl...more

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May 08, 2013 Jacob Sanders rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was dark as hell, but a little taxing to read. Getting past the melodramatic character building, which helps to accentuate the toll the virus takes on the main character, and the thick Victorian English used by Shelley, the book was pretty damned cool.

Before loneliness was an attractive topic, before end-game diseases were all the rage, before writing about the heart-pulverizing death of children was the "in" thing, Mary Shelley was dropping these gems on your face like hot bricks of...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Gavin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, where do I start?

This book is not an enjoyable read. I found it very hard to finish and genuinely felt like it was written in the wrong form. The narrative is prose poetry; yes, that’s correct, a five hundred plus page novel in nineteenth century prose poetry. To make this even worse, the character plots were as far as I can see non-existent. The only real story that is told is that which the synopsis explains.

The story bumbled along with heavy and suffocating narrative and left me numb to...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Julie rated it 3 of 5 stars

3 1/2 stars. Mary Shelley. Published in 1826 by Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein), the book is set close to the end of the 21st century, as a post-apocalyptic tale of what is left of humanity after a deadly plague. She didn’t have much foresight for future technology. Transportation is still horse and buggy, sailing ships, and hot-air balloons. The dialect is very clearly early 19th century. I think it would have been better set closer to the time it was written. However, on the human side,...more

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Aug 13, 2011 David Fraser rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, sci-fi, 2011

I was disappointed by this book. It's billed as Shelley's apocalyptic fantasy of the the end of mankind and, for a third of the book, it is.

Unfortunately, the first two-thirds are a thinly veiled emo homage to her nearest and dearest written in the most purple prose it's ever been my duty to slog through unendingly.

Where Frankenstein saw MSW let her imagination take the reader to a new world of possibilities (and consequences), The Last Man can only go so far as to suggest that, in 300 years, th...more

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May 25, 2012 Tom Lloyd rated it 1 of 5 stars

Just couldn't get into it let alone finish it... While it may have been written in a deliberate style, cos it says so in the introduction, it's not one for me. To my modern eye it's badly overwritten and needs trimming because the prose, while good in small chunks, just overpowers any great flow or impetus when taken as a whole. On top of that, her obsession with loneliness is so overarchingly heavy-handed she might as well have used a trowel to heap it on. The story is related to you so you're...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Rob rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic

I really wanted to enjoy this book but I found it a real chore to get through. I've been on a post-apocalyptic binge lately and I've had some real gems. Having thoroughly enjoyed Frankenstein I expected this to be one of them.

There were a number of problems I had with the book, most of them being related to the era it was penned. This normally wouldn't have been a problem for me but it really took me out of the story to see a book set in our future rooted so firmly in the past. The complete lack...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Dara Miller rated it 2 of 5 stars

I love Frankenstein, and some of my favorite parts in that novel involve Victor's meditations and his conversations with Walton. However, if there had never been a monster in Frankenstein, I doubt I would have really enjoyed it. The Last Man, to me, pretty much seemed like a monster-less Frankenstein. Also, the whole premise of the novel is that a horrific plague sweeps the world and our protagonist becomes "the last man," and yet he's only in this state for about 20 pages at the end, and it tak...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Lindsay rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: z2011, classics, fiction, kindle

You know you're not enjoying a book when you think 'They're all dead now, it must be nearly finished'. Sure, there were some wonderful, poignant and tragic passages, but overall the book just dragged, and Shelley's vision for the future was not only unimaginative technologically (I wasn't looking for accuracy, but even the thought of faster transport would have been nice) but also socially. She gave us a nominal republic, but post-apocalypse, when humanities numbers had been decimated, she still...more

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About Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft ...more Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, often known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley) was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, travel writer, and editor of the works of her husband, Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. She was the daughter of the political philosopher William Godwin and the writer, philosopher, and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.

Mary Shelley was taken seriously as a writer in her own lifetime, though reviewers often missed the political edge to her novels. After her death, however, she was chiefly remembered only as the wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley and as the author of Frankenstein. It was not until 1989, when Emily Sunstein published her prizewinning biography Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality, that a full-length scholarly biography analyzing all of Shelley's letters, journals, and works within their historical context was published.

The well-meaning attempts of Mary Shelley's son and daughter-in-law to "Victorianise" her memory through the censoring of letters and biographical material contributed to a perception of Mary Shelley as a more conventional, less reformist figure than her works suggest. Her own timid omissions from Percy Shelley's works and her quiet avoidance of public controversy in the later years of her life added to this impression.

The eclipse of Mary Shelley's reputation as a novelist and biographer meant that, until the last thirty years, most of her works remained out of print, obstructing a larger view of her achievement. She was seen as a one-novel author, if that. In recent decades, however, the republication of almost all her writings has stimulated a new recognition of its value. Her voracious reading habits and intensive study, revealed in her journals and letters and reflected in her works, is now better appreciated. Shelley's recognition of herself as an author has also been recognized; after Percy's death, she wrote about her authorial ambitions: "I think that I can maintain myself, and there is something inspiriting in the idea". Scholars now consider Mary Shelley to be a major Romantic figure, significant for her literary achievement and her political voice as a woman and a liberal.(less)

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Books by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein / Dracula / Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (Signet Classics)

Frankenstein The Graphic Novel: Original Text

Frankenstein & Dracula (Classic Library Series)

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Quotes from The Last Man

“Her countenance was all expression; her eyes were not dark but impenetrably deep; you seemed to discover space after space in their intellectual glance.” — 11 people liked it

“It is a strange fact, but incontestable, that the philanthropist, who ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable and gentle, yet disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over men's minds than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt any means, nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the advancement of his cause.” — 1 person liked it

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