Editing Olaf Stapledon (section)

==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 [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] degree in [[Modern History]] (Second Class) in 1909, promoted to an [[Master of Arts (Oxbridge and Dublin)|MA]] degree in 1913.<ref>Kinnaird, John. ''Olaf Stapledon''. Borgo Press, 1986. {{ISBN|978-0-916732-55-4}}</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. {{ISBN|9780415668286}} (pp. 85–108).</ref> His wartime experiences influenced his pacifist beliefs and advocacy of a World Government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/features/jan05a.shtml|title = Visions of the Future: Olaf Stapledon - Archives Hub}}</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 [[Doctor of Philosophy|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. {{ISBN|978-0-684-16740-4}}</ref> Stapledon was a member of the [[Aristotelean Society]].<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Crossley |editor1-first=Robert |title=An Olaf Stapledon reader |date=1997 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |page=284}}</ref>

As a pacifist Stapledon was involved in a number of peace-advocacy organisations, such as the [[Peace Pledge Union]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Faragher |first1=Megan |title=Public Opinion Polling in Mid-century British Literature The Psychographic Turn |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=67}}</ref> In August 1939 he addressed a meeting of the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crossley |first1=Robert |title=Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future |date=1994 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |page=263}}</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|Richard Acland's]] left-wing [[Common Wealth Party]],<ref name="vg" /> as well as the British [[internationalism (politics)|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. {{ISBN|1872210198}} (p. 50)</ref> He supported implementing the recommendations of the [[Beveridge Report]]<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crossley |first1=Robert |title=Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future |date=1994 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |page=306}}</ref> and spoke at the first public meeting of the [[Left Book Club]]'s "Readers' and Writers' Group".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mulhern |first1=Francis |title=The Moment of "Scrutiny" |date=2020 |publisher=Verso}}</ref>

Other organizations which Stapledon was involved with include the [[H. G. Wells Society#1930s group|H.G. Wells Society]], [[League of Nations Union]], the [[1941 Committee]], the [[Progressive League]] and the [[British Interplanetary Society]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=McCarthy |first1=Patrick A. |title=Olaf Stapledon |date=1982 |publisher=Twayne Publishers |page=24}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Crossley |first1=Robert |title=Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future |date=1994 |publisher=Syracuse University Press |page=212}}</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>{{cite book |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Vincent |title=Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth |date=2012 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |page=209}}</ref> He held membership of the Merseyside branch of the [[Fabian Society]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shippey |first1=Tom |title=Skeptical Speculation and Back to Methuseluh |journal=[[SHAW: The Annual of Bernard Shaw Studies]] |date=1997 |volume=17 |pages=199–213 |jstor=40681473 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681473}}</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">{{Cite book |last=Clarke |first=Arthur C. |title=The Sentinel |publisher=Berkley Books |year=1983 |isbn=0-425-09389-1 |location=New York |pages=3–4}}</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 [[apartheid|anti-apartheid]] movement. After a week of lectures in Paris, he cancelled a projected trip to [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|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>{{cite web | url=http://www.cheshirenow.co.uk/caldy_hill.html | title=Cheshire Now – Caldy Hill | access-date=16 January 2013 }}</ref>