In the late Romantic age, demands for political change converged with
thinking about the end of the world. This book examines writings by Lord
Byron, Mary Shelley and their circle that imagined the end, from poems
by Byron that pictured fallen empires, sinking islands, and dying stars
to the making and unmaking of populations in Frankenstein and The Last
Man. These works intersected with and enclosed reflections upon brewing
political changes. By imagining political dynasties, slavery,
parliament, and English law reaching an end, writers challenged liberal
visions of the political future that viewed the basis of governance as
permanently settled. The prospect of volcanic eruptions and biblical
deluges, meanwhile, pointed towards new political worlds, forged in the
ruins of this one. These visions of coming to an end acquire added
resonance in our own time, as political and planetary end-times converge
once again.