Overview

Origins of Apocalyptic Science Fiction: The Last Man argues that apocalyptic science fiction found its origins in the early 19th century, in works of literature centred on the figure of the Last Man on Earth. This character, inexistent before then, inspired authors and readers alike, grew in popularity, and quickly became an archetype. This obsessive retelling of the same story was a response to unprecedented social, political, and scientific upheavals and acted as a means to process those changes through the practice of fiction. By imagining the end of the human worldview through the figure of the Last Man on Earth, a new archetype of resilience and solitude, they expressed indirectly the trauma of those changing times and created a blueprint to read both past and future human history. This book traces the figure of the Last Man and its significance through eight major works of fiction, charting the evolution of humanity’s most persistent nightmare and its transformation into our most enduring literary obsession.

Full Product Details

Author:   Julie Hugonny
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
ISBN:  

9781032749143

ISBN 10:   1032749148
Pages:   198
Publication Date:   03 July 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction; Chapter 1 – ""It was a beautiful day for the world's decadence.""; The Last Man, by Jean-Baptiste de Grainville, a poetic apocalypse; Chapter 2 – ""One day all extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth alone""; The Cathartic Word in Mary Shelley's The Last Man; Chapter 3 – ""Another universe began, whose genesis some future Moses and Laplace would tell.""; The unlimited possibilities of death and life in Camille Flammarion's Omega; Chapter 4 – ""After the battle comes Quiet""; The Consequences of Evolution in H.G. Wells' The Time Machine; Chapter 5 – ""It was not a good race which called itself Man […] Never through me shall it spring and fester again.""; M. P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud – The Reluctant Adam of a New Humanity; Chapter 6 – ""Children with sharp teeth [and] an insatiable belly.""; Figures of eternal return in Jules & Michel Verne's The Eternal Adam; Chapter 7 – ""What is education? - Calling red scarlet""; Figures of regression in Jack London's The Scarlet Plague; Chapter 8 – ""The Death of the Earth for our Kingdom""; Human and Posthuman in J.-H. Rosny Aîné's The Death of the Earth.; Conclusion

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Author Information

Julie Hugonny earned a PhD in French literature from New York University. Her research interests include 19th-century literature, science fiction in literature and cinema, depictions of monsters in popular culture, as well as disasters, epidemics, devolution, and the end of the world. Her articles have been published in Supernatural Studies, Modern Language Studies, as well as French Forum.

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