I Am Legend (novel)

I Am Legend is a 1954 horror novel by American writer Richard Matheson. It helped the development of the zombie genre and in popularizing the idea of a worldwide apocalypse due to disease. 
The novel was a success. It was adapted to a movie as "The Last Man on Earth" in 1964, as "The Omega Man" in 1971, and as "I Am Legend" in 2007. It also came with a direct-to-video 2007 production capitalizing on that movie, "I Am Omega". The novel was also the inspiration behind the 1968 movie "Night of the Living Dead".