Olaf Stapledon's masterpiece - 'dictated' by the final human species - follows the rise and fall of humanity and its ancestors from their primordial abysses to their cultural and technological heights. Over many long years of future history, the human form itself undergoes dramatic changes - elongating, shrinking, and, finally, escaping the bounds of the body... Mesmerising in its imagination and scope, Last and First Men is one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written.