In the ‘Cozy Catastrophe’ Novel, the End of the World Is Not So Bad (Published 2023) (2024)

In “Billion Year Spree,” his influential 1973 study of science fiction, the writer Brian Aldiss identified a kind of post-apocalyptic novel that he called “the cozy catastrophe.” These were stories about the end of the world in which a resourceful survivor — usually a British man from the middle class — puts together a relatively comfortable life for himself in the ruins. Although the genre is often associated with the work of John Wyndham, especially “The Day of the Triffids” (1951), Aldiss traced it back to THE HOPKINS MANUSCRIPT (Scribner, 385 pp., paperback, $18), by R.C. Sherriff, which first appeared in 1939. Reissued this month, this wonderful novel should powerfully resonate with readers whose consciences are troubled by inequality and climate change. As Aldiss wrote, “The essence of cozy catastrophe is that the hero should have a pretty good time … while everyone else is dying off.”

Aldiss described the cozy catastrophe as a narrative that traded in “anxiety fantasies,” of which Sherriff had plenty of firsthand experience. Born in 1896, he was working as an insurance clerk in London when the First World War erupted. After arriving as an officer in France, he found himself strained to the breaking point by the tension on the front lines. In his memoirs, Sherriff recalled, “I told myself that the average man in the ranks, who had no education — did not have these awful nameless fears. I told myself this in defense of myself — I told myself that whatever I enjoyed by way of better comfort, I paid out again in mental dread.”

“Journey’s End” was a surprise hit. The first brief run was directed by James Whale and featured a young Laurence Olivier as Stanhope, after which the production changed theaters and lead actors; the play’s success allowed Sherriff to move into a handsome country house with his mother. (His biographer, Roland Wales, says that he never seems to have had a romantic relationship with anyone.) In 1931, he published “The Fortnight in September,” a nearly perfect comic novel about a family’s trip to the seaside, and, two years later, was recruited by Whale to write the script for Universal Pictures’ adaptation of “The Invisible Man,” by H.G. Wells. It was Sherriff’s first professional brush with science fiction, and a few years later, he embarked on an even more ambitious attempt at the genre, as the world seemed on the verge of repeating the mistakes of the Great War.

“The Hopkins Manuscript” opens with a foreword by the Imperial Research Press of Addis Ababa, which states that the text that follows was discovered in a thermos flask “in the ruins of Notting Hill.” More than 800 years have passed since an unspecified cataclysm caused the end of Western civilization, and all records of Britain since the time of Julius Caesar have been lost, apart from a few stray fragments, such as a tablet commemorating the dedication of a public swimming pool in North London. Scholars of ancient history, the foreword notes, hoped that the manuscript would shed light on England’s final days, but they were disappointed to find nothing but the testament of “a man of such unquenchable self-esteem and limited vision that his narrative becomes almost valueless to the scientist and historian.”