Abstract
An examines Mary Shelley's The Last Man, which begun in 1824 and published in 1826. It embraces a confluence of narratives that resists an interpretative closure or categorization--combining tales of multiple love-triangles, political debates, psychological struggles, historical vignettes, records of war, bits of travelogues, the text is cast as a dystopian vision invoking a classical myth. In addition, the novel enfolds the author's psychological state into the fabric of the narrative--the "Sibyline" prophecy of the war-torn, plague-ridden, desolate earth prophesied in the text reflects Mary Shelley's emotional inscape as she mourned Percy's death, a loss which threatened her sense of human agency. The novel's formal hybridity also calls into question various thematic or conceptual boundaries and fixed identities, including those of self, gender, class, race, religion, and nationality.