The Last Man
First edition, 1826
Mary Shelley's The Last Man (1826) was met with critical hostility in its day, largely because of its grim and unsettling subject. It has since been reappraised as a groundbreaking work of post-apocalyptic fiction, portraying a late twenty-first-century world ravaged by a relentless pandemic that eventually reduces humanity to a single survivor. Published by Henry Colburn in three volumes. This copy is in a contemporary three-quarter leather binding. Very scarce.
Hardcover. First Edition. Duodecimo, bound in three-quarter leather with marbled paper boards, raised bands with gilt rules, and gilt lettering on the spine. Vol. 1 includes two ad leafs in the rear, and has mispaginated page 327 as 227. xii, 358, [2, ads]; [ii], 328; [iii], 352 pp. London: Henry Colburn, 1826. #10764.
Very good with rubbing and wear to edges of all three vols. Binding holding firm in all but vol. 1 has some tearing along gutters and edge-rubbing is a bit more pronounced than the others. Offsetting to endpapers and some added wear to paste downs of vols. 2 and 3 from the removal of bookplates. Small, neat owner initials on title page of all three.
Hardcover. First Edition. Duodecimo, bound in three-quarter leather with marbled paper boards, raised bands with gilt rules, and gilt lettering on the spine. Vol. 1 includes two ad leafs in the rear, and has mispaginated page 327 as 227. xii, 358, [2, ads]; [ii], 328; [iii], 352 pp. London: Henry Colburn, 1826. #10764.
Very good with rubbing and wear to edges of all three vols. Binding holding firm in all but vol. 1 has some tearing along gutters and edge-rubbing is a bit more pronounced than the others. Offsetting to endpapers and some added wear to paste downs of vols. 2 and 3 from the removal of bookplates. Small, neat owner initials on title page of all three.
Additional Details
Mary Shelley is widely credited with launching modern science fiction with her novel Frankenstein, but she also created one of the earliest and most influential works of post-apocalyptic fiction with The Last Man (1826). Set in the closing decades of the twenty-first century, the novel is framed as a prophetic manuscript discovered in the ruins of the Sibyl’s Cave, where fragments are assembled into the narrative of Lionel Verney, the last survivor of a global plague.
Shelley’s future England has abolished the monarchy and adopted an elective republic led by Verney’s friend, Adrian, Earl of Windsor, a character often read as a portrait of the author’s husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The early chapters follow the intertwined lives of Adrian; the charismatic and impulsive Raymond (frequently linked to Lord Byron); and Verney’s sister, Perdita. Their political ambitions, romantic entanglements, and involvement in the war for Greek independence set the stage for the pandemic that slowly engulfs the world.
When the plague begins spreading across Europe, the political narrative gives way to an unhurried and devastating chronicle of societal collapse. London empties, governments dissolve, and small bands of survivors migrate through England, Switzerland, France, and Italy in search of refuge. Some of the novel’s most striking scenes include the desolate Thames, the emptied palaces of Venice, and the storm at sea off the Greek coast that claims Adrian and the young Clara, leaving Verney to wander the remnants of Europe entirely alone.
Written after the deaths of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and several of Mary Shelley’s children, The Last Man is often understood as a work of mourning, its characters cast as thinly veiled portraits of those she lost. Contemporary reviewers rejected the novel for its bleakness, but it has since been recognized for its prescience, particularly in the early twenty-first century in the midst of the COVID pandemic. It is one of the first works to imagine global apocalypse as a slow, impartial scourge that outlasts every human institution.
The Last Man is now regarded as a foundational work of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. Readers in Shelley’s day may have been unprepared for the scale of destruction she envisioned, but the novel resonates with later generations. Verney at the end of the novel is alone in Rome, carving the year 2100 on the stone of St. Peter's, before setting out in a small boat to coast the shores of an empty world, carrying the works of Homer and Shakespeare, and searching for anyone who might remain. Not quite hopeless, but utterly alone.
Shelley’s future England has abolished the monarchy and adopted an elective republic led by Verney’s friend, Adrian, Earl of Windsor, a character often read as a portrait of the author’s husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The early chapters follow the intertwined lives of Adrian; the charismatic and impulsive Raymond (frequently linked to Lord Byron); and Verney’s sister, Perdita. Their political ambitions, romantic entanglements, and involvement in the war for Greek independence set the stage for the pandemic that slowly engulfs the world.
When the plague begins spreading across Europe, the political narrative gives way to an unhurried and devastating chronicle of societal collapse. London empties, governments dissolve, and small bands of survivors migrate through England, Switzerland, France, and Italy in search of refuge. Some of the novel’s most striking scenes include the desolate Thames, the emptied palaces of Venice, and the storm at sea off the Greek coast that claims Adrian and the young Clara, leaving Verney to wander the remnants of Europe entirely alone.
Written after the deaths of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and several of Mary Shelley’s children, The Last Man is often understood as a work of mourning, its characters cast as thinly veiled portraits of those she lost. Contemporary reviewers rejected the novel for its bleakness, but it has since been recognized for its prescience, particularly in the early twenty-first century in the midst of the COVID pandemic. It is one of the first works to imagine global apocalypse as a slow, impartial scourge that outlasts every human institution.
The Last Man is now regarded as a foundational work of apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. Readers in Shelley’s day may have been unprepared for the scale of destruction she envisioned, but the novel resonates with later generations. Verney at the end of the novel is alone in Rome, carving the year 2100 on the stone of St. Peter's, before setting out in a small boat to coast the shores of an empty world, carrying the works of Homer and Shakespeare, and searching for anyone who might remain. Not quite hopeless, but utterly alone.