The Last Man
byMary Shelley
CompletedSci FiPublic domain
Public-domain text, with thanks to Standard Ebooks and other free-text projects.
The Last Man chronicles the last days of humanity in the 21st century as it is slowly obliterated by a global pandemic. Radical changes and events across Europe—the king abdicates, turning England into a Republic; war erupts between Greece and Turkey—weaken the fabric of society, allowing an unknown and deadly disease to quickly spread across the world. Political leaders are disorganized; spiritual figures offer little comfort; science yields no answers.