The Last Man: Placing a Significant Source Text

In addition to Emily likely borrowing from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man, as noted earlier, I now provide evidence to show Charlotte, Branwell and Anne did so too. I propose Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826) is an important, unrecognised source text for their juvenilia. Despite some scholars claiming the Brontë family had not read novels, or female writers in their youth, I suggest they encountered Mary Shelley’s novel around 1833 as this is the date from when textual signs of the apocalyptic novel, alongside the Shelleyan ‘life’ narrative, appear in the juvenilia work.