A beautiful drawing by the great animal painter George Stubbs of a little donkey, from the British Museum’s on-line collection, is among the illustrations in a new essay to accompany my modern readers’ edition of Mary Shelley’s The Last Man. A few others, like this wonderful portrait of a mule taken by Walker Evans in 1936, come from the Library of Congress and its digital archives of the U.S. Farm Security Administration.

This essay is one I’ve had in mind to write for quite some time and it’s my hope, as always, that readers will find it entertaining and thought-provoking. I finished it quickly and the timing is interesting, because I’d been hoping to retire from my day job right about now. That was not to be. So, to everyone and everything continuing in harness, this one is especially for us.

To green pastures!

Read it now–and comment anyplace you’d like. . .here, Facebook, Last Man, please take your pick and write a line or two.