"Probably the most powerful work of imagination ever written"

Arthur C. Clarke

William Olaf Stapledon was born in 1886 and educated at Abbotsholme School, Balliol College,Oxford,and Liverpool Univesity.After spending eighteen months with a shipping office in Liverpool and Port Said,he lectured extramurally for Liverpool University in English literature and industrial history. He served in France with the Friend's Ambulance Unit from 1915 to 1919.He subsequently lectured again, extramurally, for Liverpool University, in psychology and philosophy .He died in 1950.His books include Last and First Men(1930),A Modern Theory of Ethics,Odd John(1936),Sirius(1944),and A Man Divided(1950).