Written by Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville and published in 1805, it was the first story of modern speculative fiction to depict the end of the world.

[4] The first publication failed to attract any critical notice or sales, but was championed by Herbert Croft, who published a second edition in two volumes, in 1811.

The protagonist, Omegarus, is the son of the King of Europe and the last child born there in a far future in which the earth is becoming sterile and the human ability to reproduce is fading.

After various adventures there, including meeting Ormus, the Spirit of Earth, who urges the two to begin a rebirth of the human race, Omegarus returns to Europe with Syderia by his side.

Ormus, who cannot survive without humanity, despairs, and the world begins to end and the graves of all the dead to open, initiating the eventual Rapture and the events described in the Book of Revelation.