John Wyndham (edit name/settings)

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in the village of Knowle in Warwickshire, England, the son of George Beynon Harris, a barrister, and Gertrude Parkes, the daughter of a Birmingham ironmaster. His early childhood was spent in Edgbaston in Birmingham, but when he was 8 years old his parents separated and he and his brother, the writer Vivian Beynon Harris, spent the rest of their childhood at a number of English preparatory and boarding schools, including Blundell's School in Devon during the First World War. His longest and final stay was at Bedales School in Hampshire (1918–1921) which he left at the age of 18, where he blossomed and was happy.

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', though he also wrote some detective stories.
World War II

During the Second World War Wyndham first served as a censor in the Ministry of Information, then joined the army, serving as a Corporal cipher operator in the Royal Corps of Signals. He participated in the Normandy landings, although was not involved in the first days of the landings.
Postwar

After the war Wyndham returned to writing, inspired by the success of his brother who had had four novels published. He altered his writing style and by 1951, using the John Wyndham pen name for the first time, wrote the novel The Day of the Triffids. His prewar writing career was not mentioned in the book's publicity, and people were allowed to assume that it was a first novel from a previously unknown writer.

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 under the name John Wyndham, all of which appeared in his lifetime. In 1963 he married Grace Wilson, whom he had known for more than 20 years; the couple remained married until he died. He moved out of the Penn Club in London, and lived near Petersfield, Hampshire, just outside the grounds of Bedales School.

He died aged 65 at his home in Petersfield, Hampshire. Much of his unsold work later appeared. At the same time, a lot of his early material was also reprinted. He was survived by his wife and brother.
Major works

* The Day of the Triffids
* The Kraken Wakes was published in the United States as Out of the Deeps.
* The Chrysalids was published in the United States as Re-Birth, and was adapted as a BBC Radio 4 play in the early 1980s.
* The Midwich Cuckoos has been filmed twice as Village of the Damned.
* Trouble with Lichen
* Chocky has been adapted as a Thames Television serial.
* Web is a short novel that, although less well known, includes all his major themes.

The first four novels, written over a fairly short period in the 1950s, are widely regarded as the peak of his achievement

Like his compatriot H. G. Wells, with whom Wyndham shares the honor of having done more than nay other British writer to popularize science fiction, Wyndham used up-to-date technology in his stories. He is noted for plot inventiveness, clarity in writing, and a profound sympathy for mankind in the nuclear age; he was one of the very first writers to include mention of nuclear bombs and other terrifying modern devices in his novels. He is best known for "The Day of the Triffids" and "The Kraken Wakes", the former made into a very successful film. Like the work of many science fiction writers, Wyndham's stories are essentially modernized Gothic.