The Last Man

The Last Man by Mary Shelley (1826)

A devastating plague sweeps across the world in the late 21st century, reducing humanity to a single survivor who wanders the empty ruins of civilization. The first apocalyptic novel — by the author of Frankenstein.

Historical Significance:
Mary Shelley published The Last Man in 1826, eight years after Frankenstein and four years after her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley's death by drowning. The novel is deeply personal — its characters are thinly veiled portraits of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and their circle, and the plague that destroys the world mirrors the deaths that devastated Mary's own life (she lost her husband, three of her four children, and several close friends in quick succession).

The novel was savaged by critics and largely forgotten for 150 years. Its rediscovery in the 1960s revealed it as astonishingly prophetic — the first novel to imagine a global pandemic destroying civilization, predating every subsequent apocalyptic narrative from The Stand to The Road to Station Eleven. It is now recognized as Mary Shelley's second masterpiece and the founding text of apocalyptic fiction.

This public domain classic was originally published in 1826. Free to read and share.