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Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-ix [x] xi-xii 1-339 [340: printer's imprint], original blue cloth, spine panel stamped in red. First edition, first impression, first issue. 2513 copies of this issue were distributed. The author's fourth novel, often regarded as Stapledon's greatest work, and one of the very few truly seminal modern SF novels. ". mind-boggling imaginative tour de force." - Survey of Science Fiction Literature V, pp. 2150-55. ". a tremendously exciting exposition of Stapledon's philosophy, which extends his thought to its logical conclusion." - Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 3-60. "A magnificent work by any standards; the most important speculative work of the period." - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 2-121. "LAST AND FIRST MEN is just slightly an atheist's tract, based largely on nineteenth-century thought, and in particular on Winwood Reade's MARTYRDOM OF MAN. In STAR MAKER, the atheism has become a faith in itself, so that it inevitably approaches higher religion, which is bodied forth on a genuinely new twentieth-century perception of cosmology. It therefore marks a great step forward in Stapledon's art, the thought unfolding with little sense of strain through chapter after chapter. It is magnificent. It is almost unbearable . LAST AND FIRST MEN and STAR MAKER soar far beyond the accepted limits of science fiction . Stapledon is the great classical example, the cold pitch of perfection as he turns scientific concepts into vast ontological epic prose poems, the ultimate SF writer." - Aldiss and Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, p. 198. Stapledon's "influence, both direct and indirect, on the development of many concepts which now permeate genre SF is probably second only to that of H. G. Wells." - Clute and Nicholls (eds), The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1993), pp. 1151-53. Anatomy of Wonder (1981) 2-101; (1987) 2-112; and (2004) II-1072. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1514. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 722. Clarke, Tale of the Future (1978), p. 72. Gerber, Utopian Fantasy (1973), p. 153. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, pp. 205. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, p. 215. Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain 1890-1950, pp. 209-12. In 333. Bleiler (1978), p. 185. Reginald 13562. Satty and Smith A7.1.1.1. A fine copy in lovely professionally restored first issue pictorial dust jacket (price "8s. 6d. net" at base of front flap not clipped or canceled). Several closed tears have been mended, mostly along spine and front flap folds, and there are patch-ins at spine ends with "STAR" in title and publisher's "METHUEN" imprint supplied in hand-lettered facsimile. Overall, this striking jacket (designed by Bip Pares) is stunning. Nice copies of this book are elusive. (#170969).

A philosophical science fiction novel that explores themes of change and evolution on a cosmic scale.