The Last Man

The Last Man is Mary Shelley’s ambitious and haunting novel of the end of the world, published in 1826. Set in a future twenty-first century, it follows Lionel Verney and a small circle of idealistic friends, closely modelled on Shelley’s own lost companions, as a devastating plague spreads across the globe and civilisation collapses nation by nation. One by one the people he loves are taken from him, until Verney is left to wander an empty earth as the last human being alive. Long neglected, the book is now recognised as a pioneering work of apocalyptic and science fiction, and as a moving elegy for a vanished generation of poets and dreamers. This free PDF and EPUB offers the complete novel.