Methuselah's Children

Methuselah's Children is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction in the July, August, and September 1941 issues, it was expanded into a full-length novel in 1958. The novel is usually considered to be part of Heinlein's Future History series of stories. It introduces the Howard families, a fictional group of people who achieved long lifespans through selective breeding. The space ship in this novel, the New Frontiers, is described in the Future History timeline as a second-generation ship, following the Vanguard, the vehicle for Heinlein's paired novellas "Universe" and "Common Sense". According to John W. Campbell, the novel was originally to be called While the Evil Days Come Not. The provisional title stems from a quotation from Ecclesiastes, which was used as a password on the second page of the story. The novel was the origin of the word "masquerade" as a term for a fictional trope of a hidden society within the real world.