The Purple Cloud (1901) - M. P. Shiel

Category: (Post)apocalyptic, Adults, Classic, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Keywords: last man Loneliness Madness

Written by M. P. Shiel
Read by Clifford Samuel
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Penguin Classics
Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
Release date: 07-02-20
Publisher: Penguin Audio

The Purple Cloud tells the grandly bleak story of Adam Jeffson, the first man to reach the North Pole and the last man left alive on earth…

. Foretold by a priest as being against the will of God, Adam Jeffson’s Arctic expedition unleashes a terrible fate on the world - a mysterious purple cloud that spreads far into the heavens and across the earth.

“If now a swell from the Deep has swept over this planetary ship of earth, and I, who alone chanced to find myself in the furthest stern, as the sole survivor of her crew . . . What then, my God, shall I do?” The Purple Cloud is widely hailed as a masterpiece of science fiction and one of the best “last man” novels ever written. A deadly purple vapor passes over the world and annihilates all living creatures except one man, Adam Jeffson. He embarks on an epic journey across a silent and devastated planet, an apocalyptic Robinson Crusoe putting together the semblance of a normal life from the flotsam and jetsam of his former existence. As he descends into madness over the years, he becomes increasingly aware that his survival was no accident and that his destiny—and the fate of the human race—are part of a profound, cosmological plan.

But everything changes as he discovers he is not the only person left, stumbling upon a naked young woman without any knowledge of the world that once stood.

The Purple Cloud was a pioneer in the genre of apocalyptic novels and the first great science fiction work of the 20th century

Matthew Phipps Shiel was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained “Shiell” though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name.

He is remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. The Purple Cloud (1901; 1929) remains his most famous and often reprinted novel.

Note…This novel is 120 years old. As when reading Frankenstein, don’t judge it with 2021 eyes.