Binding: Paperback
Description: Mary Shelley's landmark novel that invented the human extinction genre and initiated climate fiction imagining a world where newly - forged communities and reverence for nature rises from the ashes of a pandemic - ravaged society now for the first time in Penguin Classics with a foreword by Rebecca Solnit A Penguin Classic Written while Mary Shelley was in a self - imposed lockdown after the loss of her husband and children and in the wake of intersecting crises including the climate - changing Mount Tambora eruption and a raging cholera outbreak The Last Man (1826) is the first end - of - mankind novel an early work of climate fiction and a prophetic depiction of environmental change. Set in the late twenty - first century the book tells of a deadly pandemic that leaves a lone survivor and follows his journey through a post - apocalyptic world that's devoid of humanity and reclaimed by nature. But rather than give in to despair Shelley uses the now - ubiquitous end - times plot to imagine a new world where freshly - formed communities and alternative ways of being stand in for self - important politicians serving corrupt institutions and where nature reigns mightily over humanity a timely message for our current era of climate collapse and political upheaval. Brimming with political intrigue and love triangles around characters based on Percy Shelley and scandal - dogged poet Lord Byron the novel also broaches partisan dysfunction imperial warfare refugee crises and economic collapse and brings the legacy of her radically progressive parents William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft to bear on present - day questions about making a better world less centered around man. Shelley's second major novel after Frankenstein The Last Man casts a half - skeptical eye on romantic ideals of utopian perfection and natural plenitude while looking ahead to a greener future in which our species develops new relationships with non - human life and the planet.
Title: The Last Man
Author(s): Shelley Mary
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Barcode: 9780143137900
Pages: 592 Pages
Publication Date: 4/9/2024
Category: Fiction: Special Features