Author talk:Idrisyn Oliver Evans

Information

Idrisyn Oliver Evans, F.R.G.S (1894-1977) was a South-African born civil servant, editor and writer. I O Evans does not appear to have much information available so the present author decided to start to start adding information to this page.

He was a futurist by nature and wrote a book intended to inspire younger readers called The World of To-Morrow; A Junior Book of Forecasts.The book itself was remarkable for its construction and content. The book was published by Denis Archer, 6 Old Gloucester Street, London,W.C 1 1933.The work aimed at children describes and illustrates many possible future inventions, and was of the first anthologies of science fiction The 24 plates include: a tidal power generator, a rail-plane, space rockets, space suits, a forgery detector, an anti-gas ray, and aero-cycle, and a supercalculator,a North Sea Reclamation scheme, a mid-ocean airport, the Office of the Future, a future church, and how London would appear in the future.

Evans chose to use modern techniques in the production of the book which has a special binding and outer covers made from the hard cellulose acetate‘rhodoid’ which gives it the appearance of a plastic cover through which the cover, printed in black with a futuristic picture of a city, can be seen. Today this would look cheap but at the time of publication it was unknown as a book cover material. The engravings are printed on transparent ‘diophane’ film.

There are a number of links and articles that refer to his passion for cigarette card collection.

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