The Last Puritan

The Last Puritan: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel is a 1935 novel by the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana. Set largely in the fictional town of Great Falls, Connecticut, Boston, and England, in and around Oxford, it relates the life of Oliver Alden, the descendant of an old Boston family. Santayana wrote of the novel that "it gives the emotions of my experiences, and not my thoughts or experiences themselves."

Alden's life demonstrates "the essential tragedy of the late-born Puritan." In the Prologue, Santayana explains that, "in Oliver puritanism worked itself out to its logical end. He convinced himself, on puritan grounds, that it was wrong to be a puritan." The tragic aspect is that in spite of his realization he maintained the character that was his cultural bequest.