The last man

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, wrote the apocalyptic novel The Last Man in 1826. Its first person narrative tells the story of our world standing at the end of the twenty-first century and - after the devastating effects of a plague - at the end of humanity. In the book Shelley writes of weaving this story from a discovery of prophetic writings uncovered in a cave near Naples. The Last Man was made into a 2008 film.