The Last Man
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1826
A twenty-first-century plague empties the earth, and the last survivor writes down everyone he has lost. Read it for grief, not gadgets.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
1797–1851
The Last Man appeared anonymously in 1826 and many readers assumed it was Byron's; Shelley wrote it in the years after her husband and Byron had both drowned in Italy.
Feels like death, melancholy and grief.
Joy arriving at the worst possible time, and refusing to be inappropriate.
By degrees, our whole party surmounting the steep, joined us, not one among them, but gave visible tokens of admiration, surpassing any before experienced. One cried, “God reveals his heaven to us; we may die blessed.” Another and another, with broken exclamations, and extravagant phrases, endeavoured to express the intoxicating effect of this wonder of nature. So we remained awhile, lightened of the pressing burthen of fate, forgetful of death, into whose night we were about to plunge; no longer reflecting that our eyes now and for ever were and would be the only ones which might perceive the divine magnificence of this terrestrial exhibition. An enthusiastic transport, akin to happiness, burst, like a sudden ray from the sun, on our darkened life. Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch extatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays waste every hope. Books by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
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