Olaf Stapledon

William Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950) was an English philosopher and writer of speculative fiction. After studying history at Oxford, he worked in shipping and in adult education, served with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in France during the First World War and earned a doctorate in philosophy at Liverpool. His first novel, Last and First Men, published in 1930, told the history of humanity over two billion years, and it was followed by Odd John, Sirius and Star Maker, which surveys the life of the entire cosmos. His vast imaginative scale deeply influenced later science fiction writers, including Arthur C. Clarke.