"The world teeters in collective anxiety in the midst of a pandemic. A novel and lethal plague spreads its tentacles around the earth. It ravages human populations and simultaneously undermines their interconnected economic and political systems. ... This story line should sound familiar. But I am not summarizing the news headlines about Covid-19. I am recalling the plot of a great work of literature. It is Mary Shelley's futuristic novel about a global plague, ." - Eileen Hunt Botting, 13 March 2020. Now regarded as Mary Shelley's most important novel after , portrays an apocalyptic world at the end of the 21st Century ravaged by plague. The dystopian novel not only will appeal to fans of science fiction literature but also fans of Romanticism and its champions, Percy Blythe Shelley and Lord Byron. Indeed, Mary Shelley used the novel as a vehicle to present a tribute to her late husband Percy, for whom she had wished to write a proper biography, but had been forbidden from doing so by her father-in-law. Percy is represented in the novel Adrian, Earl of Windsor, a utopian philosopher figure, and also by minor characters such as Merrival, an astronomer, who is oblivious to the plague until his family dies. Lord Byron is presented as the passionate and ambitious Lord Raymond, who fights for Greece against the Turks and in the end chooses romance over the chance to become King of England. ............ Watersgreen House is an independent international book publisher with editorial staff in the UK and USA. One of our aims at Watersgreen House is to showcase same-sex affection in works by important gay and bisexual authors in ways which were not possible at the time the books were originally published. We also publish nonfiction, including textbooks, as well as contemporary fiction that is literary, unusual, and provocative. watersgreen.wixsite.com/watersgreenhouse