The New Adam and Eve by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Short summary

5 seconds

There are no more people left on earth except the new Adam and Eve. They explore the homes, buildings, and manufacturing facilities left by their predecessors.

1 minute

Doomsday has struck on Earth, all the people are gone, but the houses, and all the labors of intellectual and moral development, remain. To recreate the desolate and desolate earth anew, new Adam and Eve were created, but they lack the knowledge of their predecessors.

Adam and Eve wander the empty streets of Boston and explore empty private businesses and public buildings: the haberdashery store, the church, the courthouse, the jail, the gallows, the stately mansion with all its many rooms, the bank, the jewelry store, the Bunker Hill monument, the Harvard Library, and Mount Auburn cemetery.

Throughout the journey, Adam and Eve comment on what they see. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s voice rumbles between the reader and Adam and Eve’s explorations, dispelling the melancholy gothic effects of the setting in several narrative episodes.