John Wyndham (1903–1969)

Born in the village of Knowle in Warwickshire, England. After leaving school, Wyndham tried several careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, but mostly relied on an allowance from his family. He eventually turned to writing for money in 1925, and by 1931 was selling short stories and serial fiction to American science fiction pulp magazines, most under the pen names of 'John Beynon' or 'John Beynon Harris'. After WWII Wyndham returned to writing. Using the John Wyndham pen name for the first time, he wrote the novel The Day of the Triffids. The book proved to be an enormous success and established Wyndham as an important exponent of science fiction. He went on to write and publish six more novels.

John Wyndham wrote several short stories before World War II under various names, including Lucas Parkes, John Harris, and Lucas Beynon. It was not until after the war that he began to focus on the themes of disaster, invasion, and evolution under the name of John Wyndham and created two of the most well-known stories of our time – The Day of the Triffids and The Midwich Cuckoos. John Wyndham died in 1969, but his works continue to be read as classics of speculative fiction.