"One word, in truth, had alarmed her more than battles or sieges, during which she trusted Raymond’s high command would exempt him from danger. That word, as yet it was not more to her, was PLAGUE. This enemy to the human race had begun early in June to raise its serpent-head on the shores of the Nile; parts of Asia, not usually subject to this evil, were infected. It was in Constantinople; but as each year that city experienced a like visitation, small attention was paid to those accounts which...

ppl seem to be disappointed that it’s not frankenstein but like… it’s not meant to be frankenstein that’s ok.they were written in completely different circumstances in shelley’s life representing different emotions the plot of the last man isn’t anywhere near as strong as frankenstein but it is so poignant, especially the many autobiographical elements

I desperately tried to convince myself that I didn’t loathe this, but I’m just not that good a liar. 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 pa...

I had wanted to read this after learning about it in an introduction to another Shelley book that I read last year, a collection of short stories. I kept myself from reading one GR friend's two star review of the book so that I would not see the spoilers. When I started reading, a member of one of my groups mentioned trying to read the same book and having to give up after 100 pages.Well, I got myself through three chapters, skimming the last one. I do not know how close that is to 100 pages, bu...

I thought this was a fairly difficult read and not one everyone would enjoy, but I really liked it. Basically, if you like early 19th century British novels AND post-apocalyptic fiction, you should check this out.

You are the last person on the face of the Earth every desire can be easily obtained, the best of the best shelter, food , clothes, toys, transportation an endless vacation go anywhere do anything , nobody can stop it the enormous world is all yours...Only one little problem the animals have inherited the planet, a lonely, solitary man no humans to speak to, he is just temporarily standing for a short while and will soon be gone too ( and welcomes this fact), civilization has collapsed buried un...

Shelley's apocalypse13 December 2013 Being a lover of older books and science-fiction when I discover a book that is in effect both I become really interested, so when I discovered that Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame) wrote a book about the last man left alive on Earth (or as she puts it in her book the LAST MAN), I was immediately interested, so instead of attempting to troll through the chain store bookstores here in Australia (which generally consists of Dymoks, now that Borders has effec...

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 as a remarkable, deeply interesti...

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...

I'm glad I read this book. As a fan of the post-apocalyptic genre, I felt like it was a must. Shelley didn't originate the concepts found here, but this is still arguably, the first actual post-apocalyptic novel, as such. It was quite fascinating to see how many of the common tropes we find in so much of today's post-apocalyptic fiction are also found in this book: the urge to travel, even in the absence of a clear goal. Scavenging and exploring abandoned places. Hordes of those willing to victi...

Review from BadelyngeIt seems like I've been reading Mary Shelley's The Last Man all year. I'm not the fastest of readers but whenever I read poetry I read even slower. The Last Man isn't poetry but it is written using poetic prose, which keeps tricking me into thinking I'm reading an epic poem. The primary characters are based on Shelley's recently deceased husband poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and herself (although personified by the eponymous male character). The woman can write some....

Revisiting this during a global pandemic seems rather unnerving because this is a book in which the entirety of humanity dies after succumbing to plague. And the more I read it the more I take from it. This is my third time round. The first was for enjoyment and the second two were for research purposes. I'm currently writing a PhD chapter on this along with Frankenstein and Matilda. What draws me to this literary era, beyond that of any other, are the depictions of nature. The natural world is

Gorgeous. I liked this one even more than Frankenstein, which is one of my favourite books. It's strange that this book is so often referred to as science fiction. The only scifi aspect is that it takes place in the future—fortunately for us because, as the title portends, the human species is wiped out at the end of the twenty-first century when a plague devastates our planet. The Last Man was published in 1856 and it reads as if it is taking place in 1800s. That gets a bit confusing at times,

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 snuffs out humanity, the story subtly inc...

(NOTE: Oxford Classics' introduction-part can be spoilery.)Mary Shelley wrote more than Frankenstein (still need to read that one). This book was written 8 years after that book, after returning from Italy back to England, and after losing her husband to death. This and the loss of most of her children with him no doubt inspired the mood and the losses happening in this book, a book about gradual dwindling of people on earth due to a plague (which started in Egypt, then spread eastwards and west...

Mary Shelley did not stop writing after Frankenstein and I was excited to come across her last novel "The Last Man", unfortunately I found it a difficult book to read and I came close to giving up on it all together. Indeed the first time I read it, I took a break of over a year in the middle of the book - it was not exactly compelling, read through the night material.The idea is that a plague wipes out humanity leaving one man alone to survive. This story is set in the future, Shelley's vision

That was long! Good in places, boring in others, it wasn't really what I expected. From the author of Frankenstein: The 1818 Text & set in the end of the 21st century, I expected some SF elements, but there were none. The war is one that could have taken place any time in the prior centuries & was taking place then. While there is some travel by balloon, most is by horse. Ships still rely on sails save for a few steam powered ones. Being published in 1826, there is no knowledge of germ theory so...

‘’A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer, and that I would become. A hope of amelioration always attends on change of place, which would even lighten the burthen of my life... Tiber, the road which is spread by nature’s own hand, threading her continent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. I would with a few books, provisions and my dog embark in one of these and float down the current of the stream into the sea; and then, keeping near land. I would coast the beaute

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...

Oh Mary Shelley, really...is this the best you could do? Honestly, it should probably get a 1-star because I had to force myself to finish it. I continued with this torture because was hoping you would redeem yourself and make this book become at least remotely interesting in the end. But you didn't. You failed. This is a novel of "the last man", who becomes the only survivor of a future plague. The story actually starts with an introduction by you, Mary Shelley, stating that you found a collect...