Olaf Stapledon

William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) was an English philosopher and author of science fiction.<ref name="as">Andy Sawyer, "[William] Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2010. (pp. 205–210) Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name="jk">John Kinnaird, "Stapledon,(William) Olaf" in Curtis C. Smith, Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers. Chicago, St. James, 1986. Template:ISBN (pp. 693–6).</ref> In 2014, he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Life

Stapledon was born in Seacombe, Wallasey, on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire, the only son of William Clibbett Stapledon and Emmeline Miller. The first six years of his life were spent with his parents at Port Said, Egypt. He was educated at Abbotsholme School in Derbyshire and Balliol College, Oxford, where he acquired a BA degree in Modern History (Second Class) in 1909, promoted to an MA degree in 1913.<ref>Kinnaird, John. Olaf Stapledon. Borgo Press, 1986. Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Oxford University Calendar, 1915, p. 182</ref> After a brief stint as a teacher at Manchester Grammar School he worked in shipping offices in Liverpool and Port Said from 1910 to 1912. From 1912 to 1915 Stapledon worked with the Liverpool branch of the Workers' Educational Association.<ref name="jk" />

During the First World War he served as a conscientious objector.<ref name="jk" /> Stapledon became an ambulance driver with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France and Belgium from July 1915 to January 1919; he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery.<ref name="vg">Vincent Geoghegan,"Olaf Stapledon: Religious but not a Christian" in Socialism and religion : roads to common wealth.London: Routledge, 2011. Template:ISBN (pp. 85–108).</ref> His wartime experiences influenced his pacifist beliefs and advocacy of a World Government.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 16 July 1919 he married Agnes Zena Miller (1894–1984), an Australian cousin.<ref name="jk" /> They had first met in 1903, and later maintained a correspondence throughout the war. They had a daughter, Mary Sydney Stapledon (1920–2008), and a son, John David Stapledon (1923–2014). In 1920 they moved to West Kirby.

Stapledon was awarded a PhD degree in philosophy from the University of Liverpool in 1925 and used his doctoral thesis as the basis for his first published prose book, A Modern Theory of Ethics (1929).<ref name="vg" /> However, he soon turned to fiction in the hope of presenting his ideas to a wider public. The relative success of Last and First Men (1930) prompted him to become a full-time writer. He wrote a sequel, Last Men in London, and followed it up with many more books of both fiction and philosophy.<ref>"Olaf Stapledon". J. L. Campbell Sr., in E. F. Bleiler, ed.Science Fiction Writers. New York: Scribners, 1982. pp. 91–100. Template:ISBN</ref> Stapledon was a member of the Aristotelean Society.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

As a pacifist Stapledon was involved in a number of peace-advocacy organisations, such as the Peace Pledge Union.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In August 1939 he addressed a meeting of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For the duration of the Second World War Stapledon abandoned his pacifism and supported the war effort.<ref name="vg" /> In 1940 the Stapledon family built and moved into a new house on Simon's Field, in Caldy, in Wirral. During the war Stapledon became a public advocate of J.B. Priestley and Richard Acland's left-wing Common Wealth Party,<ref name="vg" /> as well as the British internationalist group Federal Union.<ref>Andrea Bosco,Federal Union and the origins of the 'Churchill proposal' : the federalist debate in the United Kingdom from Munich to the fall of France, 1938-1940 London : Lothian Foundation Press, 1992. Template:ISBN (p. 50)</ref> He supported implementing the recommendations of the Beveridge Report<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and spoke at the first public meeting of the Left Book Club's "Readers' and Writers' Group".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Other organizations which Stapledon was involved with include the H.G. Wells Society, League of Nations Union, the 1941 Committee, the Progressive League and the British Interplanetary Society.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Some commentators have called Stapledon a Marxist, although Stapledon distanced himself from the label stating that "I am not a Marxist, but I have learned much from Marxists, and I am not anti-Marxist",<ref>"I am not a Marxist, but I have learned much from Marxists, and I am not anti-Marxist... Marxism and Christianity spring from the same emotional experience, but each in its way misinterprets, falsifies." quoted in Geoghegan, Vincent, Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth.</ref> though he did refer to himself as a socialist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He held membership of the Merseyside branch of the Fabian Society.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

After 1945 Stapledon travelled widely on lecture tours. Arthur C. Clarke, as Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, invited him to give a talk on the social and biological aspects of space exploration.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> He also travelled internationally, visiting the Netherlands, Sweden and France, and in 1948 he spoke at the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace in Wrocław, Poland. He attended the Conference for World Peace held in New York City in 1949, the only Briton to be granted a visa to do so. In 1950 he became involved with the anti-apartheid movement. After a week of lectures in Paris, he cancelled a projected trip to Yugoslavia and returned to his home in Caldy, where he died very suddenly of a heart attack.<ref name="vg" />

Stapledon was cremated at Landican Crematorium. His widow and their children scattered his ashes on the sandy cliffs overlooking the Dee Estuary, a favourite spot of his that features in more than one of his books. Stapledon Wood, on the south-east side of Caldy Hill, is named after him.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Works

Stapledon's fiction often presents the strivings of some intelligence that is beaten down by an indifferent universe and its inhabitants who, through no fault of their own, fail to comprehend its lofty yearnings. It is filled with protagonists who are tormented by the conflict between their "higher" and "lower" impulses.<ref name="jk" />

Stapledon's writings directly influenced Arthur C. Clarke,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Brian Aldiss,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Stanisław Lem, Bertrand Russell,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> John Gloag,<ref>Ruddick, Nicholas, "Science Fiction", in Brian W. Shaffer, John Clement Ball, Patrick O'Donnell, David W. Madden and Justus Nieland, The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction. John Wiley & Sons, 2010 Template:ISBN,(p. 333).</ref> Naomi Mitchison,<ref>"Mitchison, Naomi", in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature A Checklist, 1700–1974 : with Contemporary Science Fiction Authors II. Robert Reginald, Douglas Menville, Mary A. Burgess Detroit – Gale Research Company. Template:ISBN (p. 1002)</ref> C. S. Lewis,<ref>Template:Cite journal Also, C.S. Lewis cites Olaf Stapledon as an inspiration in his preface to That Hideous Strength.</ref> Vernor Vinge,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> John Maynard Smith<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and indirectly influenced many others, contributing many ideas to the world of science fiction. Clarke wrote:<ref name=":0" />

Ideas such as a "supermind" composed of many individual consciousnesses forms a recurring theme in his work. Star Maker contains the first known description of what are now called Dyson spheres. Freeman Dyson credits the novel with giving him the idea, even stating in an interview that "Stapledon sphere" would be a more appropriate name.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Last and First Men features early descriptions of genetic engineering<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and terraforming. Sirius describes a dog whose intelligence is increased to the level of a human being's. Stapledon's work also refers to then-contemporary intellectual fashions (e.g. the belief in extrasensory perception).

Last and First Men, a "future history" of 18 successive species of humanity, and Star Maker, an outline history of the Universe, were highly acclaimed by figures as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, J. B. Priestley, Bertrand Russell, Algernon Blackwood,<ref>Blackwood, Algernon. "Cosmic Thrillers",(Review of Last and First Men, Time and Tide, 20 December 1930. Reprinted in Fantasy Commentator magazine, 6(2):134–136. Fall 1988.</ref> Hugh Walpole, Arnold Bennett, Virginia Woolf (Stapledon maintained a correspondence with Woolf) and Winston Churchill.<ref name="B">Benford,Gregory, "Foreword" in Last and First Men. London, Millennium, 1999. Template:ISBN pp. ix–xi.</ref> In contrast, Stapledon's philosophy repelled C. S. Lewis, whose Cosmic Trilogy was written partly in response to what Lewis saw as amorality, although Lewis admired Stapledon's inventiveness and described him as "a corking good writer".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In fact Stapledon was an agnostic who was hostile to religious institutions,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> but not to religious yearnings, a fact that set him at odds with H. G. Wells in their correspondence.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Together with his philosophy lectureship at the University of Liverpool, which now houses the Olaf Stapledon archive, Stapledon lectured in English literature, industrial history and psychology. He wrote many non-fiction books on political and ethical subjects, in which he advocated the growth of "spiritual values", which he defined as those values expressive of a yearning for greater awareness of the self in a larger context ("personality-in-community").<ref name="jk" /> Stapledon himself named his spiritual values as intelligence, love and creative action.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> His philosophy was strongly influenced by Spinoza.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Stapledon is considered one of the forerunners of the contemporary transhumanist movement.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Film rights

Film producer and director George Pal bought the rights to Odd John and in 1966 Castle of Frankenstein magazine reported that David McCallum would play the title role.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2017 a multimedia adaptation of Last and First Men by Oscar-nominated Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson was released, featuring narration by Tilda Swinton and a live score performed by the BBC Philharmonic.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2019, Justin McDonald and Kate Hodgson wrote, produced, and starred in a short film adaptation of Stapledon's "A Modern Magician." Directed by Mark Heller, the film also featured the voice of Brian Cox. It was the first-ever live-action adaptation of any of Stapledon's literary works.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930) (Template:ISBN)
• Last Men in London (1932) (Template:ISBN)
• Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) (Template:ISBN)
• Star Maker (1937) (Template:ISBN) First Edition cover by Bip Pares
• Darkness and the Light (1942) (Template:ISBN)
• Old Man in New World (short story, 1944)
• Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord (1944) (Template:ISBN)
• Death into Life (1946)
• The Flames: A Fantasy (1947)
• A Man Divided (1950) (Template:ISBN)
• Four Encounters (1976) (Template:ISBN)
• Nebula Maker (drafts of Star Maker, 1976) (Template:ISBN)
• East is West (posthumous, 1979)

Non-fiction

• A Modern Theory of Ethics: A study of the Relations of Ethics and Psychology (1929)
• Waking World (1934)
• Saints and Revolutionaries (1939)
• New Hope for Britain (1939)
• Philosophy and Living, 2 volumes (1939)
• Beyond the "Isms" (1942)
• Seven Pillars of Peace (1944)
• Youth and Tomorrow (1946)
• Interplanetary Man? (1948)
• The Opening of the Eyes (ed. Agnes Z. Stapledon, 1954)

Poetry

• Latter-Day Psalms (1914)

Collections

• Worlds of Wonder: Three Tales of Fantasy (1949)
• To the End of Time: the Best of Olaf Stapledon (ed. Basil Davenport, 1953) (Template:ISBN)
• Far Future Calling: Uncollected Science Fiction and Fantasies of Olaf Stapledon (ed. Sam Moskowitz 1979 Template:ISBN)
• An Olaf Stapledon Reader (ed. Template:Interlanguage link, 1997)

See also

• List of peace activists
• List of ambulance drivers during World War I

External links

• Template:FadedPage
• Olaf Stapledon Archive at the University of Liverpool SF Hub
• Works at Project Gutenberg Australia
• Template:ISFDB name
• Olaf Stapledon at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
• Template:LCAuth (including 1 "from old catalog" as William Olaf)
• Digitized works by Olaf Stapledon at Toronto Public Library