The Last Man

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr Pamela Bickley, The Godolphin and Latymer School, formerly of Royal Holloway, University of London.

The Last Man is Mary Shelley's apocalyptic fantasy of the end of human civilisation. Set in the late twenty-first century, the novel unfolds a sombre and pessimistic vision of mankind confronting inevitable destruction. Interwoven with her futuristic theme, Mary Shelley incorporates idealised portraits of Shelley and Byron, yet rejects Romanticism and its faith in art and nature.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was the only daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, author of Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and the radical philosopher William Godwin. Her mother died ten days after her birth and the young child was educated through contact with her father's intellectual circle and her own reading. She met Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1812; they eloped in July 1814. In the summer of 1816 she began her first and most famous novel, Frankenstein. Three of her children died in early infancy and in 1822 her husband was drowned. Mary returned to England with her surviving son and wrote novels, short stories and accounts of her travels; she was the first editor of P.B.Shelley's poetry and verse.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. vi)
• Introduction (p. vii)
• Note on the Text (p. xxiv)
• Select Bibliography (p. xxv)
• A Chronology of Mary Shelley (p. xxvii)
• Volume I (p. 3)
• Introduction (p. 3)
• Chapter 1 (p. 9)
• Chapter 2 (p. 20)
• Chapter 3 (p. 36)
• Chapter 4 (p. 48)
• Chapter 5 (p. 62)
• Chapter 6 (p. 77)
• Chapter 7 (p. 90)
• Chapter 8 (p. 105)
• Chapter 9 (p. 118)
• Chapter 10 (p. 137)
• Chapter 11 (p. 155)
• Volume 2 (p. 167)
• Chapter 12 (p. 167)
• Chapter 13 (p. 183)
• Chapter 14 (p. 202)
• Chapter 15 (p. 218)
• Chapter 16 (p. 229)
• Chapter 17 (p. 239)
• Chapter 18 (p. 257)
• Chapter 19 (p. 267)
• Chapter 20 (p. 295)
• Volume 3 (p. 315)
• Chapter 21 (p. 315)
• Chapter 22 (p. 325)
• Chapter 23 (p. 342)
• Chapter 24 (p. 362)
• Chapter 25 (p. 383)
• Chapter 26 (p. 394)
• Chapter 27 (p. 408)
• Chapter 28 (p. 423)
• Chapter 29 (p. 437)
• Chapter 30 (p. 451)
• Explanatory Notes (p. 471)