AUDIOBOOK
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In our own time, when the dark threat of a dystopian world is not an alien or avoidable concept, The Last Man (1826) is revealed as a trailblazing novel. With a truly global view, Mary Shelley's futuristic romain à clef - containing portraits of her husband Percy (Adrian), Lord Byron (Raymond) and several others - spearheaded the apocalyptic genre for an intimidated 19th-century readership that rejected her 'diseased imagination' and 'polluted taste'. In the wake of COVID-19, the ravaging of a plague pandemic and its connection with politics has fascinating resonance. Told by Lionel, a wild child from Cumberland, the story begins in 2073 and sets out a horrifying future while creating an idealised past. From the political machinations of Westminster in London to the secluded Apennines in Rome, it covers an ongoing war between Greece and Turkey, the futility of the imagination, the dashing of hopes and expectations, and ultimately the survival of the human race. This superb recording by Justin Avoth ensures The Last Man's place as Shelley's most important work after Frankenstein.
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Reviews
"The year is 2092, and humankind has been beaten down by pandemics, floods, fanaticism, isolation, and wars. Narrating in a measured aristocratic tone, Justin Avoth channels the voice of the last man alive as he lays out Mary Shelley's 1826 dystopian vision of the future. All begins happily enough with young love, ambition, and the rise of kings, but constant war, a failed attempt at a British republic, and never-ending plagues and natural disasters drive what's left of humanity to the brink. Lucy Scott takes a nice turn delivering the original introduction, and Avoth is especially adept at untangling Shelley's sometimes ponderous nineteenth-century prose. But as is the case with FRANKENSTEIN (1818), it's the relentless and predictive originality of Shelley's world-building that takes center stage. B.P. � AudioFile 2025, Portland, Maine"
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