The Purple Cloud

A plague sweeps the world in the late 21st century and the narrator watches civilisation empty out around him. Shelley wrote the first great novel about the end of humanity.

Mary Shelley

England has reverted to forest and marsh, the capital is a poisoned swamp, and a young man sets out across the wilderness that replaced it. An early and vivid picture of nature reclaiming an industrial society.

Richard Jefferies

Sixty years after a pandemic wiped out nearly everyone, an old survivor tries to explain the vanished world to grandchildren who barely believe him. A short, bleak study of how fast knowledge disappears.

Jack London

Professor Challenger predicts that Earth is about to pass through a belt of poisonous ether and gathers his friends to watch the end. Doyle turns a global catastrophe into a tight, unsettling short novel.

Arthur Conan Doyle