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The Last Man, by Mary Shelley
Free PDF The Last Man, by Mary Shelley
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Mary Shelley’s astounding look at the end of the world
Set at the end of the twenty-first century, The Last Man is a moving and fantastical account of the apocalypse. Faced with a populace clamoring for more democratic rule, the last king of England relinquishes his throne. Suddenly a mysterious plague sweeps the globe, drawing ever nearer to England. As war, disease, and death ravage humanity, ideals of fairness and love are quickly supplanted by the imperative of survival.
With semibiographical characters drawn from Shelley’s own inner circle of friends and colleagues, this book is at once a look at the end of mankind and a critique of Romanticism. The Last Man’s themes of destruction resonate as much now as they did nearly two hundred years ago.
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- Sales Rank: #95765 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-02-24
- Released on: 2015-02-24
- Format: Kindle eBook
From Publishers Weekly
Set in an apocalyptic future ending in the year 2100, Shelley's 1826 novel concerns a plague that destroys almost all of humankind.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Thanks to yet another film incarnation, 1818's Frankenstein is again a hot property and may even make the best sellers lists. These two editions mark both ends of the publishing spectrum, with Signet offering the inexpensive movie tie-in version complete with photos from the film and an afterword by Howard Bloom. The California version is the Pennroyal edition, featuring gorgeous illustrations by Barry Moser and an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates. Published in 1826 after the death of her husband and three children, The Last Man is Shelley's dark look at an apocalyptic future.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
""The Last Man" created an entirely new genre, compounded of the domestic romance, the Gothic extravaganza, and the sociological novel. . . . ÝMary Shelley's¨ most interesting, if not her most consummate work."-Muriel Spark. "A fascinating . . . novel-romance on a timely subject."-"Studies in English Literature." "An absorbing roman clef, Ýit¨ develops one of the major themes of romantic art, that of spiritual isolation, and . . . treats it in a unique way."-"The Year's Work in English Studies."
Most helpful customer reviews
113 of 120 people found the following review helpful.
'All The World Has The Plague!'
By mp
Mary Shelley's novel, 'The Last Man' is a work which is slowly gaining the critical attention it richly deserves. Fans of 'Frankenstein' will be astounded at how much deeper Mary Shelley's indictment of 'masculine' visionary Romanticism, technology, and the faults of humanity go in 'The Last Man'. At the same time, the novel is fraught with problems and contradictions which give an already paranoid work a whirling sense of internal dementia.
The action of 'The Last Man' takes place between 2073 and 2100 AD. England is ripe for change as the last King of England abdicates his throne in response to public outcry for a more democratic form of government. Lionel Verney, a shepherd, is drawn out of a life of wildness and crime by Adrian, the former crown prince of England. The charismatic Lord Raymond enters the story as the lover of Lionel's sister, Perdita, and the newly-elected Lord Protector of England. Torn between his love of power and his affections for his wife and a persistent attachment to Evadne, a Greek woman, Raymond renounces his political position and flees to Greece. There, he leads a military campaign to establish Greek independence and bring about the end of the Turkish empire.
Then, the Plague takes over. The nondescript malady has wiped out the population of Constantinople just as Raymond conquers it, making his victory meaningless. Word of the plague's virulence comes in from Asia and America, and from the southern, eastern, and western corners of the world, the plague begins to encroach inward towards Europe and England. The remainder of the novel tracks Lionel and Adrian's attempts to save the human race from utter annihilation.
In 'The Last Man', Mary Shelley gives us a horrifying, desolate prophecy of the future, when religion, technology, and human effort are all exposed as meaningless. Although many might say that she also abandons the redemptive possibilities of art, I think that art provides the novel's only hope. Mary Shelley's dependence on art of every format is clear in the novel's influences - She has Lionel refer to literature, including the works of Daniel Defoe, Charles Brockden Brown, Ann Radcliffe, Homer, Shakespeare, and Jonathan Swift among others.
The novel is fraught with problems of gender and power relations. At any moment of emotional weakness, Lionel calls himself 'girlish' or 'womanly,' and the novel seems to privilege women who are selfless and submissive. On the other hand, as Morton Paley's introduction points out, the plague itself is consistently described as female, at one place referred to as 'The Queen of the World'. With regard to power relations, Lionel continually mentions that in the dying world of humanity, social distinctions have all been abandoned - and yet there are still references to his 'servant' or those of other people. The most problematic scene in the novel revolves around racial distinctions when Lionel encounters a dying black man in London.
There are a million things to talk about in 'The Last Man,' and a novel so rich for discussion deserves to be read by as many people as possible. This is a book I warmly recommend, so pick it up and discover that there is more to Mary Shelley than 'Frankenstein'.
60 of 62 people found the following review helpful.
The Beginning of the End
By Greg Hughes
In "The Last Man" (1826) Mary Shelley conceived a plot device that would eventually be used by a string of writers: an apocalyptic plague that virtually wipes out the human race. From "The Last Man" would come books like "The Scarlet Plague" (1912), "Earth Abides (1949) and "The Stand" (1978), each work taking something from its predecessor, each work written in a separate, distinctive era. The passage of time would allow writers to be more graphic in terms of aftermath, as readers became more sophisticated and less disturbed by what earlier generations would consider "horrifying".
"The Last Man" takes place in the late 21st century: a future without telephones, cars, television or computers. In fact life in the 2090s is not that different to the 1820s, apart from a few political changes (Britain is now a republic). Readers who criticized "Earth Abides" for being dated would have even more to complain about here. Shelley could not possibly have guessed the advances, social and technological, that would take place since 1824. Therefore it's helpful for the modern reader to pretend the story is happening in an alternate 21st century, along the lines of "Pavane".
The narrator Lionel Verney spends the first third of the book describing his early life, telling us how an altruistic young man of noble stock (Adrian) took him under his wing, effectively saving him from a life of penury. Lionel and his younger sister now mix in the highest circles, the cultured world of art, literature and music (things which the working class had nothing to do with in the 1820s).
Mary Shelley's prose is formal to say the least. Containing echoes of Byron and Wordsworth, it is rich, stylish and philosophical. It is not until Part two of the novel that the plague makes its appearance. When Shelley describes the plague there is mention of bodies lying in the open and the breakdown of order, but she doesn't treat it with the kind of brutal frankness that Stephen King does in "The Stand". It does look as if King was influenced by Shelley however. Here is a quote from "The Last Man":
"The ward was filled with an effuvia that caused my heart to heave with painful qualms. The dead were carried out, and the sick brought in, with like indifference; some were screaming with pain, others laughing from the influence of more terrible delerium; some were attended by weeping, despairing relations, others called aloud with thrilling tenderness or reproach on the friends who had deserted them while the nurses went from bed to bed incarnate images of despair, neglect and death."
Here is a quote from "The Stand" one and a half centuries later:
"Wards were crammed. Patients lay on the floors. The halls were full; nurses, many of them obviously sick themselves, wove in and out, some of them weeping hysterically. Others looked shocked to the point of coma." King also adds little details like the smell of waste and the cries of the damned. While Shelley is poetic, King is direct and to the point. He was writing for an audience whose attention span has been diminished by things like television and films laden with special effects. The impatient 21st century reader may therefore find "The Last Man" more of a challenge.
Although Shelley's plague is more gradual than those of other writers, society is still crumbling. Even though extinction is in the air, the main characters still perform acts of heroism. The character Adrian has all the makings of a saint. It's just unfortunate that there will be no one left alive to canonize him. Although "The Last Man" is dated, it did pave the way for a genre that still fascinates and terrifies readers today. Mary Shelley is owed a great debt in terms of apocalyptic literature.
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Thought provoking book of uncommon beauty
By Underground Crafter
I'll admit that as a fan of post-apocalyptic novels, I went into this book with certain expectations since I knew that it was about the last man alive on earth. Instead, I encountered a book which is mostly a debate about the purpose of man, love, art, and other "big ideas."
Most modern books of this sort spend 10 pages on life "before" and the remainder of the book on adjusting to life "after." Shelley uses the opposite approach in The Last Man, and the majority of the book takes place before a mysterious plague begins to destroy the fabric of civilization. Shelley's writing is beautiful and intelligent, and her characters are highly idealized - but no more so than you would expect in a book that is presented as the memoirs of the last man alive on earth.
I think the best way for the modern reader to approach this book is with an open mind. At the beginning, I was constantly looking for clues and signs of some impending doom, and Shelley does nearly everything possible to prevent the reader from foreseeing when and how things will begin to come apart. I would recommend trusting in her ability as an author and just giving yourself over to this book. That's what I did after a few chapters, and I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns. Shelley focuses entirely on the human drama with little attention to the science behind the plague. She herself was the lone survivor of her group of friends and she outlived most of her children, and I think you can feel her pain and loneliness in the narrator, Verney.
This book is beautifully written and the characters debate some of the major philosophical issues of the time (of all times, perhaps). While the subject itself is melancholy, Shelley is protective of her readers and spares us most of the grim details.
I had a hard time deciding whether to give this book a 4 or 5 star review. I decided that 4 was most accurate because I think the book may not appeal as widely as 5 stars would suggest. I was drawn into the world of Lionel Verney and, once I surrendered to it, I found a thought provoking book of uncommon beauty.
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