Notes
Childhood's End, a novel by Arthur C. Clarke.

A revised edition was published in 1990.

The novel was based on Clarke's short story Guardian Angel, two different versions of which were published in two different magazines in 1950.

The image opposite and the blurb below are from the 1963 printing of the Pan Books paperback edition. Cover illustration by W.F. Phillipps.

Publisher’s Blurb – Lower Cover
Blotting out the light from the stars they had linked so effortlessly, the silent ships hang suspended over the great cities of Earth . . . and a long and bloody chapter of history comes to an end.

Armed with a staggering power and an infinite wisdom the invaders from outer space shock Earth into submission – but what is their purpose?

Breath-taking in its imaginative sweep, this brilliant story explores the distant reaches of space, tells of the last generation of Man – and of the Last Man himself.