Abstract

The First Last Man is the third installment of Hunt’s trilogy on Shelley’s thought. It deftly weaves together different interpretive and political theory methods. Her careful archival work in particular stands out. She uses Shelley’s journals as an entry into the author’s psyche and motivations for writing The Last Man. While walking the reader through the journals, Hunt convincingly shows the cathartic role that writing The Last Man had for the young Shelley after her husband drowned and her first three children all died. Just as Lionel Verney, the protagonist of The Last Man, chooses to push forward and find meaning in the world even as it falls apart around him, so too does Shelley.