John Wyndham

John Wyndham (July 10, 1903 – March 11, 1969) was the pen name used by the apocalyptically oriented British science fiction writer John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris.

Introduction

In his earlier writings, Wyndham used various combinations of his names, such as John Benyon or Lucas Parkes. In one example, The Outward Urge, he actually used both the names "John Wyndham" and "Lucas Parkes", pretending to be two collaborating authors.

His book The Day of the Triffids was possibly the origin of the style of British science fiction described as the "cosy catastrophe": a genre in which everyone is killed except for a handful of middle-class survivors, who then set about rebuilding civilisation from its ashes and, in the process, secure for themselves a Savile Row wardrobe and a sporty roadster or two. (A later example of this genre was the British television serial Survivors.) Triffids was his most famous book and gave the word "triffid" to the English language, though several of his other books are proving to be equally durable; they are not all "cosy catastrophes" – he did have more range of imagination than that. However, the bulk of Wyndham's novels have a contemporary English middle-class setting, and have an air of old-fashioned Englishness which is either quaint or stuffy, depending upon one's point of view. Significantly, his one major novel which does not have this setting, The Chrysalids, is regarded by some people as his best.

The Kraken Wakes is a story of extraterrestial invasion but with a twist.

The Chrysalids, also known as Re-Birth, depicts a rural community in Labrador, several centuries after a nuclear war, with a religious obsession about eliminating those born with any genetic abnormalities. It follows a small group of friends who realize their telepathic abilities have to be hidden, and their troubles when these are discovered. The novel was adapted as a BBC Radio 4 play in the early 1980s.

The Midwich Cuckoos depicts a small village in which, during 24 hours when the inhabitants are unconscious and the village is cut off from the outside world, all the women of child-bearing age mysteriously become pregnant, eventually giving birth to golden eyed children with telepathic abilities. It was filmed as Village of the Damned (1960), with (unusually for a science fiction film) the script being fairly faithful to the book. There is also a remake in colour by John Carpenter, set in "Midwich, California", and starring Christopher Reeve in one of his last film roles before he was paralysed in a riding accident. There have also been several radio adaptations by the BBC, the most recent in 2003. Wyndham began work on a sequel novel, Midwich Main, which he abandoned after only a few chapters.

These four novels are widely regarded as the peak of his achievement. He also wrote several short stories of variable quality, ranging from hard science fiction to the whimsical, of particular note are Consider Her Ways, The Wheel, and Pillar to Post.

Biography

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in the village of Knowle just outside Birmingham, England. He lived in Edgbaston untill he was eight years old at which point his parents, George Beynon Harris and Gertrude Parkes, separated, he and his brother, the writer Vivian Beynon Harris, had no settled home after this time.

He grew up in a series of English boarding schools, staying longest at Bedales (1918-1921), which he left at the age of 18.

Despite this, his brother Vivian says: "He had a wonderful childhood and teenage time."

After leaving school he studied farming for a while, changed his mind about going to Oxford University and tried several ways of earning a living, but mostly relying on an allowance from his family. He eventually turned to writing for money in 1925. Throughout the 1930s he wrote many stories, mainly for American periodicals. He wrote some detective stories as well as science fiction.

Between 1940 and 1943, Wyndham was a civil servant with the British Government, working in censorship. He went into the army, where he was a Corporal Cipher Operator in the Royal Signal Corps, in time to participate in the Normandy landings.

In 1963 he married Grace Wilson. The couple lived out their lives near Petersfield, Hampshire, just outside the grounds of Bedales School.

Bibliography

Novels

• Planet Plane (aka Stowaway to Mars 1987) (1935)
• The Secret People (short story 1935) (novel 1950)
• The Day of the Triffids (1951)
• The Kraken Wakes (aka Out of the Deeps) (1953)
• The Chrysalids (aka Re-Birth) (1955)
• The Midwich Cuckoos (aka Village of the Damned) (1957)
• Trouble with Lichen (1960)
• Chocky (1968) (made into an ITV television series for children in the 1980s)

Posthumous novel

• Web (1979 – published by the executors of his estate, ten years after his death)

Collections

• Jizzle (1954)
• The Seeds of Time (1956)
• The Outward Urge (1959) (by "John Wyndham" and "Lucas Parkes")
• Consider Her Ways and Others (1961)

Posthumous collections

• Sleepers of Mars (1973)
• The Best of John Wyndham (1973)
• Wanderers of Time (1973)
• Exiles on Asperus (1979)

External links

• The John Wyndham Archive – Official Archive at the University of Liverpool
• Guardian article on John Wyndham
• "Vivisection": Schoolboy "John Wyndham's" First Publication?
• Read "Consider her Ways" online.