ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes the novel's early popularity in the context of the transatlantic reprint trade. It discusses illustrations to editions of the Last Days from around the Atlantic, focusing primarily on the late nineteenth century, to determine some of the reasons for the novel's lasting appeal. Illustrations in editions across Europe and North America show Romans as decadent, vain, lazy and busy attending orgies and baths. Illustrations to the novel in European and North American editions thus show Christianity to be one of the main reasons for the novel's appeal throughout the nineteenth century. Illustrations also modify the text's Christianity to make it broader and blander: while the text's ideal Christianity is a moderate, nineteenth-century Anglican one, the illustrations give readers a more basic binary opposition of Christian morality and Roman depravity.
