The Last of the Race

The perennial fascination with the end of the world has given rise to many `last men', from the ancient myths of Noah and Deucalion to contemporary stories of nuclear holocaust. This is an innovative and wide-ranging study of the myth of `The Last of the Race' as it develops in a range of texts from the late seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries. Among the writers discussed are Milton, Burnet, Defoe, Ossian, Cowper, Wordsworth, Byron, Mary Shelley, Fenimore Cooper, Bulwer-Lytton, and Darwin.