Biography

John Wyndham

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John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in 1903. After trying many jobs including farming and law, he started writing short stories for publication in 1925. He did well in America in the 1930s, writing under various pen names and graduated to churning out the staple written diet of every red blooded American male - the detective story. He was in both the Civil Service and the army during the war and returned to writing stories for the American market in 1946, concentrating on books that were released under the blanket theme of science-fiction. His books rarely dealt with the blam-blam type of space story but concentrated more on the issues surrounding his characters; his habit of often writing in the first person lent his stories a strong, personal feeling and his books quickly topped the best seller's lists.
- IMDb mini biography by: <rhino@vossnet.co.uk>

The Financial Times called Wyndham "one of Great Britain's most serious and literate pioneers of intelligent science-fiction", and that "he always wrote well and imaginatively".
Wyndham lived in Edgbaston, Birmingham until 1911 as well as many parts of England. After experiencing English prep school he was at Bedales from 1918 to 1921. He had careers in farming, law, commercial art and advertising. He first started writing short stories, intended for sale in 1925. He wrote stories of different kinds under different names, mostly for American publications, from 1930 to 1939. He also wrote detective novels. During WWII, he was in the Civil Service and afterwards the Army. He went back to writing stories for publication in the US in 1946 where he turned his hand to SF, some say unhappily. He wrote The Day of the Triffids in 1951 (by 1981 it had been reprinted 34 times) and The Kraken Awakes, (both translated into several languages), The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (later filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble With Lichen, he co-wrote The Outward Urge, wrote Consider Her Ways and Other Stories, Web and Chocky, all published through Penguin.
Was a big fan of the British radio soap opera, "The Archers.".
Believed in equality of the sexes and was hard on those who differed, even women.
The Day of the Triffids plays out over six years in his book in spite of the title.

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