Engineer Allan Stern and his secretary Beatrice Kendrick - the protagonists of the famous novel by American science fiction classic George Allan England - fall into a mysterious lethargic dream and awaken after many decades in a ruined and devastated New York. Their adventures in the ruins of civilization form the plot core of the novel. "Unoccupied World" became one of the textbook works of "post-catastrophe" fiction of the early 20th century.