The Paradise Of Children

The Paradise of Children is one of the six retold Greek myths in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1851 children’s book A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys. The story retells the classical Greek myth of Pandora’s box, adapted for the children’s literature tradition of the period and rendered in Hawthorne’s characteristic warm prose for the young readers the wider Wonder Book was aimed at.

In Hawthorne’s retelling, the central characters Pandora and Epimetheus are children rather than adults, and they live in a paradise where work, suffering, and trouble do not exist. The mysterious box that Mercury has left in their care has been a source of curiosity for Pandora across many days, with her growing fixation on what might be inside the box driving the central plot toward the inevitable moment when she finally opens it.

When Pandora opens the box, the various troubles that have not yet entered human life escape into the world. Sickness, sorrow, anger, fear, and the wider catalogue of human suffering all come pouring out into the previously perfect paradise. Pandora and Epimetheus are immediately afflicted by the troubles, with the world that had been a paradise being transformed into the world that humans actually live in. The closing section of the story introduces the gift of Hope, which has remained inside the box and which provides the consolation that humans need to bear the troubles that Pandora’s curiosity released.

The story is one of the most beloved entries in the Wonder Book and remains one of the most accessible and affecting versions of the Pandora myth available for young readers. Hawthorne’s renders the children focused version with attention to the kind of psychological detail that the original myth often loses in more conventional retellings. For families with young children encountering Greek mythology, the story is essential.