''The Eternal Adam'' (french: L'Éternel Adam) is a short novelette by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

recounting the progressive fall of a group of survivors into barbarism following an

apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...

. Although the story was drafted by Verne in the last years of his life, it was greatly expanded by his son,

Michel Verne Michel Jean Pierre Verne (August 3, 1861 – March 5, 1925) was a writer, editor, and the son of Jules Verne. Michel was born in Paris, France. Because of his wayward behaviour, he was sent by his father to Mettray Penal Colony for six month ...

Plot summary

The story is set in a far future in which Zartog Sofr-Aï-Sran, an

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, deciphers the preserved journal of a survivor to the total destruction of civilisation. The discovery comes in the midst of philosophical controversies on the origin of humans, between those that believe in the existence of a unique ancestor and those that do not. The journal describes the struggle for survival of a small group of French men and women after a sudden and unexplained catastrophe destroys the European continent, and the futility of the accumulated knowledge in the group. After seeing that their illiterate offspring will have no immediate use for the scientific knowledge they possess, the journal's author and his friends try to write down everything they remembered and store it in time-capsules for future generations, but sadly, those capsules perished in the subsequent centuries. The conclusion of the novel implies that the unique ancestor is the survivor whose journal was discovered, and that civilisation is doomed to eternal fall and rebirth. The "eternal Adam" is the myth of Adam and Eve, a variation of which is present in Zartog's civilization and he speculates may be the only knowledge that survived from countless previous cataclysms, and the only thing that may carry on after his civilization inevitably falls.

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Full original text (with illustrations)
Short stories by Jules Verne 1910 short stories Science fiction short stories Post-apocalyptic short stories Religion in science fiction Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve {{1910s-sf-story-stub cs:Včera a zítra#Věčný Adam

Plot summary

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