1987 World as Myth G. P. Putnam's Sons

To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Final novel published in Heinlein's lifetime

Narrative Synopsis

The memoirs of Maureen Johnson, mother of Lazarus Long, born in Missouri in 1882. Waking in a retirement habitat on Tertius, Maureen chronicles over a century of life, sexual liberation, family building, frontier pioneering, and temporal paradoxes, weaving all threads of Heinlein's Future History into a joyful philosophical capstone.

The only crime is to waste the joy of living.
Notable Passage

Historical & Editorial Context

Published on Heinlein's 80th birthday; the title quotes Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses".