Books

First edition, first impression, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "G. Lissant Cox, from Olaf Stapledon". The recipient was George Lissant Cox (d. 1967), a doctor and author on pathology based in Birkenhead, not far from Seacombe, where Stapledon was born. A partly autobiographical sequel to Last and First Men, this book is "far more introspective and openly personal than the first. In Last Men in London, Stapledon began composing a version of his own intellectual and emotional history transferred to a young man whom he initially called Henry Firstman. This protagonist, whose name he changed in a later draft to Paul, undergoes experiences that duplicate or gloss events from Olaf's childhood and early adult years. The analysis of war and of the failure of postwar cosmopolitanism, intended for the first chapter of Last and First Men, became the thematic focus of Last Men in London" (Crossley, pp. 199-20). Lissant Cox worked as the central tuberculosis officer for Lancashire and wrote extensively on this specific disease. The details of his relationship with Stapledon are elusive, but they were both based in the Wirral and worked at the University of Liverpool: Lissant Cox was assistant lecturer about 1912, and Stapledon graduated later in 1925, then becoming lecturer for a year in 1932-3. The theme of health and medicine was possibly a shared interest: Stapledon explored the topic in Last and First Men, where he also imagined a species of human individuals unaffected by diseases. Robert Crossley, Olaf Stapledon. Speaking for the Future, 1994. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine ruled and lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. Cloth bright, spine leaning and lightly rubbed at ends, foxing to edges and outer leaves, else clean; jacket spine chipped at head, with short closed tear just touching one letter, damp stain on front panel, minor insect damage at rear flap fold, a few marks and couple of short closed tears, without price as issued: a very good copy in like jacket.

Last Men in London is a science fiction novel by Olaf Stapledon, first published in 1932. It is a sequel to Last and First Men.