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
Biography
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.
