UK: Longmans 1962 Renault's classic novel. The Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in Ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme. The book is a convincing portrait of Athens at the close of the Golden Age and the end of the Peloponnesian War with Sparta.