Wordsworth Editions The Last Man

Frankenstein is a great novel, a literary masterpiece. The Last Man, however, is a complete disappointment and one wonders why Shelley ever wrote it, ruining her reputation.It lacks the literary expressionism of Frankenstein, it’s very shallow and unconvincing.Why set it in the 2090’s as there is no attempt at any imaginative description of what the future could look like? Reference is made to Janissaries with muskets, cannons and city walls! It’s actually going back into the past than into the future. The allusion of the main characters to figures like Byron and Percy Shelley is weak and totally unconvincing. The romanticising of Greece, with hindsight, is unrealistic and premature, as modern Greece has turned out to be a failed, corrupt, neo-oriental state.The idea of England becoming a Republic under a Lord Protector is weak.The novel takes forever to get to the plague, and even then it’s unconvincing and totally lacks the great pseudo-scientific literary expressionism of Frankenstein, although the novel does start to pick up some pace. However, there is no feeling of a dystopian state or of doom.Overall, this novel is weak, lacks imagination and is a huge disappointment after Frankenstein.

I found this book lacking in so many ways that I'm left thinking it hard to recommend (though I do). One fundamental difficulty is that it's set around 2090 yet apart from one reference to balloons taking only 2 days to fly from London to Scotland it could have been set in 1827 (a year after it was written). I don't know, there may be some radical political projections for the time (e.g. Britain helping Greece war against Turkey) but there seems to be no social, moral or cultural changes let alone any technological advancements i.e. even given the ballooning, every transport then mentioned is still either a horse or a sail boat - the author lacked continuity of their idea. Another issue for me is that for over half the book the plague isn't mentioned - this wouldn't be so bad but I didn't get any sense of impending doom.Now here are my reasons for promoting this story: "Give the author a chance" for goodness sake! who could guess 200 years hence what the world would be really like. This is a genuine fictional projection from the past and there aren't many of those, for that reason alone you learn so much (e.g. about the sort of future projecting cues available to the author at the time i.e. very few). The story isn't even about the future it's about a man. We follow him from a roaming rural villain to King's aid to roaming rural loner. The degeneration of society as the plague ravages is apt and realistic. The last quarter of the book is brilliant moving stuff. He looses everything of importance just as we would in 2009 under similar circumstances - what we'd miss is people and that's what we see through his eyes falling by the wayside as the motley crew tramp around France. At the last he does everything you'd think about doing yourself and so you feel even more for him.If you like good literature read this book - if you like good sci-fi avoid. Might I suggest just one small piece of advice: as you come across the few dates in the text substitute 1893 for 2093 it might help.

Got bored reading this. Kept wanting more about the plague but disappointed.

How did Mary Shelley predict COVID it's really good to read during lockdown

I am using this book for my BA dissertation and let me tell you it is the best material for a book I have ever held in my hands. Also the book itself is great, read some more Mary Shelley yall.