Title: The Last Man
Author: Mary Shelley
Date of First Publication: 1826
Place of Publication: London: Henry Colburn
Bibliographic Reference: isfdb
Type: novel
Characters: Mary Shelley (Lionel Verney), Lord Byron (Lord Raymond), Percy Shelley (Adrian of Windsor), Claire Clairmont (Evadne Zaimi).
Keywords: BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN; RACE and POLITICS; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER; WOMEN WRITING MONSTERS
Critical Summary: Mary Shelley’s third novel is a globe- and decade-spanning post-apocalyptic epic, as well as a personal—even autobiographical—meditation on mortality and bereavement, hubris and decay.
Set in Shelley’s envisioning of the early 21st century—in which the monarchy is abolished in England and the Ottoman Empire is a waning yet still considerable world power—The Last Man takes a sweeping look at political movements, warfare, and social upheaval. However, as narrated by the protagonist Lionel Verney, the novel is just as concerned with the lives of a few individuals as it is with the larger fate of humanity. The novel follows Verney’s life from childhood up until his survival as the last man in 2100.
The exposition-heavy first half of the novel introduces Verney and the central cast of characters: Adrian, the last man of the royal line of England; Idris, Adrian’s sister and Verney’s wife; Raymond, the Byronic warrior and charismatic leader; Perdita, Verney’s sister and Raymond’s wife; and Evadne, Raymond’s former love. Evadne’s dying words are a curse upon Raymond and ultimately the rest of humanity. They bring total destruction in the form of an airborne plague. The middle of the novel serves as the high point; Raymond sieges Constantinople. In contrast, the second half is an achingly protracted downward spiral as both entire nations and Lionel’s loved ones succumb to the Plauge. The novel is marked by deep, pervasive pessimism, with only a few rays of light, suggestive of both Shelley’s skepticism about human progress and her personal experiences of devastating loss. In the first half, Adrian and Raymond seek to establish a more peaceful and secure England and Europe. In the second half, Adrian and Lionel fight against death and despair to preserve a wandering remnant of exiles from England, encountering desperate marauders and doomsday cults along the way. This drastic shift from utopian aspirations to dystopian visions mirrors the more intimate family drama, with Lionel gaining friends and family while establishing an idyllic domestic life at the beginning, and losing everyone and everything in the end.
As in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley and her circle make thinly-veiled appearances: Adrian is an analogue for Percy Shelley; Evadne is an analogue for Claire Clairmont; Raymond is, again, Lord Byron; Mary Shelley is arguably Lionel Verney. Plot elements from Frankenstein are also transferred to The Last Man: a frame narrative, a first-person narrator, reversals of fortune from riches to rags, dying relatives, travels through Switzerland, and even the appearance of a blind old man. More significantly, The Last Man continues and builds upon Frankenstein’s thematic consideration of unchecked ambition and the pursuit of knowledge for good or ill. Here, too, there are encounters with the Other, whether it is the East, the poor and disenfranchised, or sublime nature. Finally, in both novels, man faces a terrifying force he cannot overcome. Here, the threat to mankind is not a Creature who speaks and has a personal agenda, but a silent and even more enigmatic enemy. However, the Plague, like Frankenstein’s Creature, is also the consequence of man’s over-reaching pride—namely Raymond’s ambition to conquer and his failure to control his passions—and the Plague’s appearance, too, is followed by a series of continued failures to anticipate the true extent of the horrific fallout. In both books, Shelley presents no way out for humanity to escape from its own self-inflicted problems.
Administrative Notes: Written by Robert Brown, CSUF; edited by Samuel Ortiz and Adriana Lora.