The collapse of homo sapiens - by Peter Graham - PDF novel

The collapse of homo sapiens 

I can not tell the reader much about the author of this remarkable manuscript as I only saw him twice, once recently and once in early youth when we both ran to the same rock for shelter from a thunderstorm in the Caucasus. Falling into the conversation I found him singularly intense and earnest, visionary and inclined to mysticism, but so obviously sincere that he impressed even my matter-of-fact mind with his confident prediction that England and Germany would go to war in 1914—so much so that in the succeeding years I gave much time to the study of international politics, and made many visits to Germany where I tried to fathom the intentions of the leading men, to one or two of whom I managed to obtain introductions.

Those who know me are aware that I became an un¬ faltering believer that a struggle between Germany and Britain was inevitable. I spoke frequently to that effect, publicly as well as privately.

My nameless acquaintance, who would tell me neither who he was or whence he came, sought me out in the June of 1920 and left me a bundle of papers, typewritten, evidently by himself. He was sad and tired-looking, bearing on his face the memory of some dreadful experience and the wistful melancholy of one who knows that he is coming very near the end of his earthly pilgrimage. Whether he was mad or inspired, a dreaming visionary or one who had at dreadful cost got into contact with the supernatural, the reader will be able to judge as well as I can.

The notes are given with little alteration. They were originally written in the form of a series of letters and are now roughly arranged in chapters. The reader should be prepared for the appearance of many hasty first impressions that were contradicted or modified by subsequent observation, and also for the various loose ends which the writer would probably not have left if he had wished to turn the correspondence into a finished story. I have interfered with these contradictions only when they were obvious slips of the pen. Whenever possible it seemed preferable to leave the impressions as they were committed to paper. In that way, their sincerity is maintained and a picture is drawn of the England of two centuries hence, as my name¬ less correspondent saw it.


One need not say that the impression is fragmentary. Two visits, both of brief duration, and one of them very brief was not sufficient to obtain material for anything like an exhaustive survey. The writer has confined himself to a description of such occurrences as came under his own observation or could be copied from letters, diaries and other documents containing first-hand contemporaneous accounts of the events with which they deal.

Some contents inside the novel:

CHAPTER 1
The author tells how he was prepared for his exploit. Written in Kent, July 1920.
CHAPTER II.10
He asks for a life of 2,000 years, but that being impossible, he is transported into the England of two centuries hence. His first visit. Its horror makes him pray to be sent back.
CHAPTER III.19
The desire to know revives, and after much pleading, he is allowed to revisit the future. He finds there is a civilised remnant still flying the Union Jack and trying to rescue those who have reverted.
CHAPTER IV.34
Man-sick earth is Captain Hart’s theory which he upholds in an argument with William Cecil.
CHAPTER V.44
A voyage up the reverted Thames.

 book details :

Author: Peter Anderson Graham

Publication date: 1923

Company: London - New York, G. P. Putnam's sons

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