440p PERSEPHONE BOOKS ISBN 1903155487
PREFACE BY MICHAEL MOORCOCK

The author of Journey's End, the iconic play about WW1, was also a novelist and in 1939 he imagined what might happen if the moon crashed into the earth: the events leading up to the cataclysm are seen through the eyes of a retired schoolmaster who lives in a small Hampshire village. This is science fiction but Sherriff's focus is on human nature because, as Michael Moorcock comments, 'we write such books not because we are convinced that they describe the future but because we hope they do not'; 'most of its observations on human nature are timeless and many aspects of its ending give us a parable for our times in the post-9/11 world' said The Tablet. We have republished this novel in part as a comment on the phenomenon of global warming, which we believe is by far the greatest threat facing mankind today. Fay Weldon chose The Hopkins Manuscript for her Summer Reading in the Observer, calling it 'spectacular, skilled and moving and supremely and alarmingly relevant to our life today'; while the Sunday Telegraph called it 'intensely readable and touching.'

The endpapers are taken from 'Wangle', a 1932 dyed cotton three colour print by Enid Marx.