M.P. Shiel: Stories

Adam Jeffson, the last survivor of a doomed Polar expedition and, ultimately, the last man on Earth. For some inexplicable reason, the North Pole, which bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Garden of Eden in the Bible, has become associated with that place and the idea behind The Purple Cloud is that if anyone every reaches the Pole and enters the forbidden territory once again, then all of mankind will be wiped out.