This is the source-bounded reading edition of the reconstructed lecture — the strictest of the project's editions: prose that stays within what the manuscript notes license. The left column is the ensemble-verified transcription of the sheets; the right column joins the notes into readable prose. Expansions of Stapledon's shorthand are silent, but every editorial addition — every connective sentence, every framing of a marginal note, every word without a note behind it — is tinted like this, and the scaffolding button hides or shows the tinting. Where you read the notes differently, the disagreement is with a visible editorial choice, not a hidden one. The editorial headnote below records the occasion and the manuscript's shape, with evidence classes stated; the fuller-voiced performing edition (v2) remains available.
The title sheet lists, in Stapledon's own hand, five Liverpool bodies — 1918 Club; Soroptimists; Headmasters (Settlement); Medical + Literary Soc; Forum Luncheon Club — evidently the occasions before which versions of the talk were given. That is sheet evidence for multiple deliveries, but no sheet carries a date. The dating, c. 1932–1935, is internal-evidence inference, per the project's lecture concordance: Brave New World treated as current (1932), the American system "collapsing" (the Depression), Japan expanding, and no hint of the coming war as fact. The notes themselves suggest that at least one venue was a café — "Future of this building: not always a café", and the aside "as I sat down — thinking of this moment" — though which of the five bodies met there is not recorded. A diagonal jotting on the title sheet, "4.0 Davies", is unexplained.
The manuscript (Liverpool University Library OS/F13/33) is twelve sheets, several of them versos carrying afterthoughts keyed by insertion marks. A paler pencil supplies headings, page numbers and corrections — evidence of reworking, presumably across the listed deliveries, though the layers cannot be assigned. One heading, "Future of England", is struck (the England question returns on a later sheet) and is not voiced in this edition; the final sheet is a verso of compressed jottings carrying four disputed readings, quoted here with their alternatives recorded, and the file's archive stamp.
The argument opens with the audience's own imagined futures — bogeys (Bolshies in London, Brave New World, savagery, the next war, the Yellow Peril) and utopias — and brings the question home: the future of the very building, and of Liverpool as a port. Prophecy is dismissed in favour of the consideration of possibilities, "fascinating, educative (emotionally)", across three ranges: a near future of vital questions (will the world be better or worse; England no longer a great power "but what matter?"; America, Russia, the East; internationalism; culture); a middle future of one to ten thousand years, where extinction risks are listed — "atomic explosion / bad eugenics / lack of chemicals" — and power must come from tides or subatomic sources; and a far future in which "certainly not like us" is the one firm answer to "Will there be men?".
In the corpus the concordance uses this set three times: sheet 5's "let us eat drink + be merry", set beside the superman question, is the same hedonist shrug the sceptic of Humanism and Superhumanism raises at South Place in 1934; sheet 10's "bad eugenics" among the extinction risks is its eugenics thread's "capacity question in demographic key"; and sheet 11's "new intelligent species / or improved humanity ... brain — super intellect" stands as "the far-future superman as open biological question". The concordance's synthesis reads such club talks as carrying the whole futurist scaffolding, in a plain and almost cheerful register, before the 1934 lecture "added the worship".
What is not known: the date and order of the five deliveries; which manuscript layer served which; who "Davies" was; and what the final sheet's most compressed jottings — the disputed "1000 yrs r b a day" among them — were meant to say in full. The notes end in mid-material, without a summing-up sheet.
The title sheet reads "Possible Futures" and lists, in Stapledon's own hand, five Liverpool bodies: 1918 Club; Soroptimists; Headmasters (Settlement); Medical + Literary Soc; Forum Luncheon Club — the occasions before which versions of the talk were apparently given, though no sheet carries a date. A red "86", "1206" and "F86" are filing marks, and a diagonal jotting — "4.0 Davies" — is unexplained. The prose that follows keeps to what the notes license: editorial connective tissue is tinted like this, expansions of his shorthand are silent, struck words are not voiced, and the disputed readings on the last sheet are quoted with their alternatives recorded.
The talk opens with bogeys (the heading first read "bogeys & utopias"; "& utopias" is struck, though the utopias keep their own heading below): Bolshies in London; Brave New World; savagery; the next war; the Yellow Peril. Then the utopias: the Young Soviet League; a Ford factory; a garden world.
Then, nearer home, the future of this building: not always a café; the site cleared for a bigger building; taken over by Americans; used by Russians as a child welfare centre, or by Japanese or Chinese; destroyed by bombs; allowed to fall to pieces.
And the future of Liverpool (the margin adds: crossing the Mersey): not always to be a great port; someday either removed, or decay — the river silts, like the Dee; the dock gates fall to pieces; the buildings crumble. (A further struck heading — "Future of England" — is not voiced; the England question returns on a later sheet.)
A verso line adds the moral: the shocks of the real past — ditto the future; just around the corner.
Why bother about foreseeing? As I sat down — thinking of this moment — "let us eat, drink and be merry." We can't possibly tell what will happen — except that it will be utterly different. Then is it useless to ask? No — not to consider possibilities: fascinating, educative (emotionally).
The degrees of futurity (for my purposes): "near" — the next 100 years (the margin anchors the span: Waterloo); middle — 1–10,000 years (before Egypt); far — a million years and onwards (early man).
The questions to ask about them (of different orders): near — England a world power? Russia? the family? education? Middle — coal, oil, subatomic? a huge cultural advance? Far — what will man be like? Extinct? Will he be super-man?
A verso note, keyed for insertion, adds: the end of capitalism — the incompatibility of capitalism and nationalism; nationalism victorious — that is, we are still more tribal than self-seeking.
The near future: enumerate the vital questions. First: will the world be better or worse? Better = politically unified; socially coherent, happy, rich; culturally more vital. Worse = civilization breaking up — successive wars; no unity; economic slavery (the margin sets beside it: Brave New World); impoverished; degenerate. Or better-worse, in different respects.
Second: England still a great power? I see no possibility of it: her advantage is over; she must lose her trade. But what matter? Think cosmopolitanly — and anyhow England may be the better for it. Compare Scandinavia: a quieter, more thoughtful people? A smaller population.
Third: USA dominant? — individualism; an Americanised planet (America in Asia today). But the USA is now in the throes: (a) financially — the system collapsing; (b) culturally — insincerity, graft, rackets, the universities (and diagonally in the margin: Balkanisation). The danger of world infection.
Fourth: Russia. The present order will last? But modified toward capitalism? Or counter-revolution? An anti-Russian war? (The margin jots: population; culture.) The Americanisation of Russia? The Russification of the World?
Fifth: the East. Japan is expanding, but will become stationary; also India (the margin again: population). China: a vast potentiality, a more sane mentality. A possible war of East and West.
Sixth: internationalism? Rival empires or a world state? Nationalism may collapse — it is not an instinct; but if culture declines — more nationalism.
Seventh: cultural questions. The influence of science — Russell, Huxley; or will science become more humane? Religion — a new one? The family, women. Free citizens — slaves. Free minds. Technical questions.
Middle: 1–10 thousand years. All present States gone, and the present culture with them. Continuous progress? Or extinction: atomic explosion; bad eugenics; lack of chemicals. No oil, coal — tides and subatomic (diagonally beside it: ether; voyaging). And human nature: fundamentally, the same; or improved??; or degenerate.
Far: a million years, onwards. The earth much as now (unless burnt), but climate fluctuations, continental shifts. Will there be men? Certainly not like us — things move too fast, and ever faster? — or stagnation. Either a new intelligent species, or improved humanity: sensory — eyes; the hand (not necessary); the brain — super intellect, super coordination.
The last sheet is a verso of compressed jottings; the prose keeps their order. The decay of the stock; a new dominant species — the rat. Combine with animal — a new species. Spengler. Russia and the East; Russian plans for the present and the far future. New Worlds. Our civilization unique? — the brain, fertility (an insertion); life on planets; the increase of population. Whatever happens — the domination of one P? (people or power, the abbreviation does not say; a word beneath — "cosmopolitan" — is struck, and is not voiced). Japan — economic. "1000 yrs r b a day" (the middle word is a disputed reading — "is" is the recorded alternative; the drift seems to be that on these scales a thousand years may be a day); "100 yrs dn matter" ("in" is the recorded alternative).
Then: the British future — the finest? The Irish problem. First, Japan "t b Sinefied" (a disputed span — "1b", "l b" and "1/6" are the recorded alternatives; read, if at all, as "to be Sinified"). Second, group consciousness. Third, an emotional advance — the neurotic, that is: give normal environment (a disputed word — "envirmt", "emotional" and "outlet" are the recorded alternatives) to aggressiveness. National Neurosis.
Beside these last jottings the sheet carries the Liverpool University Library stamp (recorded by the consensus as "S.T.P.2.", with "F13/33") — the manuscript's archival close. There is no summing-up sheet: the notes end in mid-material.