Editing Olaf Stapledon

{{Short description|English novelist and philosopher (1886–1950)}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name        = Olaf Stapledon
| image       = Olaf Stapledon.jpg
| caption     = Olaf Stapledon
| birth_date  = {{birth date|df=yes|1886|5|10}}
| birth_place = [[Seacombe]], [[Wallasey]], Cheshire, England
| death_date  = {{death date and age|df=yes|1950|9|6|1886|5|10}}
| death_place = [[Caldy]], Cheshire, England
| occupation  = [[Novelist]], [[philosopher]]
| period      =
| genre       = [[Science fiction]], [[philosophy]]
| movement    =
| notableworks = ''[[Star Maker]]'', ''[[Last and First Men]]'', ''[[Odd John]]''
| signature   = 
}}

'''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) {{ISBN|1135285349}}.</ref><ref name="jk">John Kinnaird, "Stapledon,(William) Olaf" in Curtis C. Smith, ''[[Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers]]''. Chicago, St. James, 1986. {{ISBN|0912289279}} (pp. 693–6).</ref> In 2014, he was inducted into the [[EMP Museum#Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame|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 [[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>

==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>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/looking-far-far-future-olaf-stapledon/|title=Looking far, far into the future: Olaf Stapledon|website=Kirkus Reviews}}</ref> [[Brian Aldiss]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/06.html|title=The Art of Penguin Science Fiction: Memory of the future|website=www.penguinsciencefiction.org}}</ref> [[Stanisław Lem]], [[Bertrand Russell]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Alien Life Imagined: Communicating the Science and Culture of Astrobiology|year=2012|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781139851091|page=225|author=Mark Brake|quote=Stapledon's writings greatly influenced not only key players in our own story on pluralism, such as Arthur C. Clarke and Stanislaw Lem, but also figures as diverse as Jorge Luis Borges, Bertrand Russell, Tom Wintringham, Virginia Woolf, and Winston Churchill.}}</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 {{ISBN|1405192445}},(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. {{ISBN|0810310511}} (p. 1002)</ref> [[C. S. Lewis]],<ref>{{cite journal|last=Leibovitz|first=Liel|url=http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/81969/star-men|title=Star Men|journal=[[Tablet (magazine)|Tablet]]|date=1 November 2011|access-date=1 March 2016|archive-date=23 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423122325/http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/81969/star-men|url-status=dead}} Also, C.S. Lewis cites Olaf Stapledon as an inspiration in his preface to ''[[That Hideous Strength]]''.</ref> [[Vernor Vinge]],<ref>{{cite web |last=Menon |first=Anil |url=http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030915/vinge.shtml |title=Article: Interview: Vernor Vinge |publisher=Strangehorizons.com |access-date=24 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203143751/http://www.strangehorizons.com/2003/20030915/vinge.shtml |archive-date=3 December 2013 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> [[John Maynard Smith]]<ref>{{cite web|last=Dvorsky|first=George|url=http://www.sentientdevelopments.com/2004/04/john-maynard-smith-and-olaf-stapledon.html| title=John Maynard Smith and Olaf Stapledon|date=24 April 2004|access-date=1 March 2016}}</ref> and indirectly influenced many others, contributing many ideas to the world of science fiction. Clarke wrote:<ref name=":0" />

{{Blockquote|text=In 1930 I came under the spell of a considerably more literate influence, when I discovered W. Olaf Stapledon's just-published ''Last and First Men'' in the Minehead Public Library. No book before or since ever had such and impact on my imagination; the Stapledonian vistas of millions and hundreds of millions of years, the rise and fall of civilizations and entire races of men, changed my whole outlook on the universe and has influenced much of my writing ever since.}}

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 sphere]]s. [[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>{{cite web |url=http://www.meaningoflife.tv/transcript.php?speaker=dyson |title=MeaningofLife.tv |publisher=MeaningofLife.tv |access-date=24 November 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140109033551/http://meaningoflife.tv/transcript.php?speaker=dyson |archive-date=9 January 2014 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> ''[[Last and First Men]]'' features early descriptions of [[genetic engineering]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.enotes.com/topics/last-first-men|title=Last and First Men Summary - eNotes.com|website=eNotes|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220232253/https://www.enotes.com/topics/last-first-men|archive-date=20 December 2016}}</ref> and [[terraforming]]. ''[[Sirius (novel)|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 (magazine)|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">[[Gregory Benford|Benford,Gregory]], "Foreword" in ''Last and First Men''. London, Millennium, 1999. {{ISBN|1-85798-806-X}} pp. ix–xi.</ref> In contrast, Stapledon's philosophy repelled [[C. S. Lewis]], whose ''[[Space Trilogy|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>{{cite book | title = Pilgrim Souls: A Collection of Spiritual Autobiography | author = Amy Mandelker, Elizabeth Powers | page = 521 | publisher = Simon and Schuster | isbn = 9780684843117 | date = 12 May 1999 }}</ref> In fact Stapledon was an [[agnostic]] who was hostile to [[religious institutions]],<ref>{{cite book|title=Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future|year=1994|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=9780815602811|page=[https://archive.org/details/olafstapledonspe00cros/page/388 388]|author=Robert Crossley|quote=In a lecture to the New Renascence School in London, he reiterated the central paradox of his own spiritual life: "Agnosticism, far from destroying religion, is the gateway to live religion." ...In a 1949 anthology on religion, Olaf gave simple, precise expression to a problem he had wrestled with all his life: the emotional inadequacy of atheism and the intellectual unacceptability of theism. Spirit, for him, meant a character of aspiration, not a substance attributed to souls or deities.|url=https://archive.org/details/olafstapledonspe00cros/page/388}}</ref> but not to religious yearnings, a fact that set him at odds with [[H. G. Wells]] in their correspondence.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=89qrAgAAQBAJ&q=Stapledon+wells+religious+beliefs&pg=PA97|title=Socialism and Religion|isbn=9781136709609|last1=Geoghegan|first1=Vincent|date=29 March 2012|publisher=Routledge }}</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>{{cite web|url=http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/thegreatcertainty.html|title=The Great Certainty|author=Olaf Stapledon|access-date=5 May 2016|archive-date=4 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904225728/https://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/thegreatcertainty.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> His philosophy was strongly influenced by [[Spinoza]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/81969/star-men|title=Star Men|author=Liel Leibovitz|date=November 2011|access-date=4 September 2018|archive-date=4 September 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180904191809/https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/81969/star-men|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Stapledon is considered one of the forerunners of the contemporary [[transhumanist]] movement.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://whatistranshumanism.org/|title=What is Transhumanism?|access-date=29 January 2021}}</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>{{cite web |url=http://www.davidmccallumfansonline.com/monster.htm |title=Article: "The Man from M.O.N.S.T.E.R." ''Castle of Frankenstein'', volume 2, No. 4 (1966) |access-date=25 January 2008 |work=David McCallum Fans Online}}</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>{{cite web |url=https://mif.co.uk/previous-festivals/mif17/last-and-first-men/ |title=Article: "Last and First Men" (2017) |access-date=25 January 2017 |work=Manchester International Festival}}</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 (actor)|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) ({{ISBN|1-85798-806-X}})
*''[[Last Men in London]]'' (1932) ({{ISBN|0-417-02750-8}})
*''[[Odd John]]: A Story Between Jest and Earnest'' (1935) ({{ISBN|0-413-32900-3}})
*''[[Star Maker]]'' (1937) ({{ISBN|0-8195-6692-6}}) First Edition cover by [[Bip Pares]] 
*''[[Darkness and the Light]]'' (1942) ({{ISBN|0-88355-121-7}})
*''[[Old Man in New World]]'' (short story, 1944)
*''[[Sirius (novel)|Sirius]]: A Fantasy of Love and Discord'' (1944) ({{ISBN|0-575-07057-9}})
*''[[Death into Life]]'' (1946)
*''[[The Flames: A Fantasy]]'' (1947)
*''A Man Divided'' (1950) ({{ISBN|0-19-503087-7}})
*''[[Four Encounters]]'' (1976) ({{ISBN|0-905220-01-3}})
*''[[Nebula Maker]]'' (drafts of ''Star Maker'', 1976) ({{ISBN|0-905220-06-4}})
* ''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 (collection)|Worlds of Wonder: Three Tales of Fantasy]]'' (1949)
*''To the End of Time: the Best of Olaf Stapledon'' (ed. Basil Davenport, 1953) ({{ISBN|0-8398-2312-6}})
*''Far Future Calling: Uncollected Science Fiction and Fantasies of Olaf Stapledon'' (ed. [[Sam Moskowitz]] 1979 {{ISBN|1-880418-06-1}})
*''An Olaf Stapledon Reader'' (ed. {{Interlanguage link|Robert Crossley|qid=Q55188564}}, 1997)

==See also==
{{Portal |Speculative fiction}}
*[[List of peace activists]]
*[[List of ambulance drivers during World War I]]

==References==

{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* {{FadedPage|id=Stapledon, Olaf|name=Olaf Stapledon|author=yes}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051028102900/http://www.sfhub.ac.uk/Stapledon.htm Olaf Stapledon Archive] at the [[University of Liverpool]] SF Hub
* [http://www.gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty-n-z.html#stapledon Works at Project Gutenberg Australia]
* {{ISFDB name|81|Olaf Stapledon}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140711013017/http://www.empmuseum.org/at-the-museum/museum-features/science-fiction-and-fantasy-hall-of-fame/members/olaf-stapledon.aspx Olaf Stapledon] at the [[Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame]]
* {{LCAuth|n50023275|Olaf Stapledon|40|ue}} (including 1 "from old catalog" as William Olaf)
*[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Erp=20&N=38537+38532+4294698632&view=grid Digitized works by Olaf Stapledon] at [[Toronto Public Library]]

{{Olaf Stapledon}}
{{Speculative evolution}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stapledon, Olaf}}
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[[Category:20th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century English philosophers]]
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