[These notes were made in 1981.:] I enjoyed this novel, but [my professor and eventual thesis supervisor:] Jay Macpherson's right - it can't really be called a Gothic, although the situation must have seemed sufficiently "improbable" to readers of the period. Although Mary has an irritating tendency to launch into flights of rhetoric at moments which would be more poignant if treated simply, she has nonetheless thought deeply about the implications of being the last human being - of seeing all that is our pride simply disappear. The horrible solitude - something she obviously understood even when she was young, writing Frankenstein, but which is now intensified by Shelley's death - is movingly depicted. In fact, I found it painful enough to be glad she hadn't made the whole novel out of it, as so many doomsday writers have since. A curious double vision, especially in the earlier chapters - one is intensely aware that Shelley is Adrian (or Adrian, Shelley?), and that Raymond is Byron. Yet the characters do not move as in the other, equally fascinating, true-life story of the Shelley/Byron years. It is as if someone had made up a fairy-tale about one's own friends and relations - the suspension of disbelief is hindered by the very reality of the characters. Still, it was a most intriguing and enjoyable read.
