The Eternal Adam is a short novelette

Novelette

A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 by Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

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

Apocalypse

An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

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

Michel Verne

Michel Jean Pierre Verne was a writer and the son of Jules Verne.Because of his wayward behaviour, Michel was sent by his father to Mettray Penal Colony for six months in 1876. By the age of 19, he caused a scandal by eloping with an actress despite his famous father's objections...

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Plot summary

The story is set in a far future in which an archaeologist deciphers the preserved journal of a survivor to total destruction of civilisation. The discovery comes in the midst of philosophical controversies on the origin of humankind, 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 and the futility of the accumulated knowledge in the group.

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.