A brilliant, early dystopian tale of classic science fiction. The Last Man is a powerful, post-apocalyptic tale and precursor to the much later science fiction novels of H.G. Wells, George Orwell, Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison amongst others. Overshadowed by the titanic success of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s neglected masterpiece tells of a future laid waste by plague. Lionel Varney, an indolent nobleman, is immune to the savage effects of the disease having been bitten by an early victim. Varney is forced to watch the long decline of civilisation as humanity sinks slowly into extinction. AUTHOR: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was born in London, to her father the writer William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, an influential social campaigner who died 11 days after the birth of her daughter. Mary’s early life was unconventional and by the age of 16 she eloped with the then-married Percy Bysshe Shelley. Amongst their friends were Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron, the latter of whom offered the challenge to Mary to write a ghost story which later became Frankenstein.