- 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.
- 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.
- An intensely private man, John Wyndham revealed little about himself in interviews.
- Even to his friends, Wyndham remained something of an enigma. He rarely, if ever, discussed anything about his past or background.
- His childhood was blighted by the separation of his mother and father. Following that, Wyndham seldom saw his father again.
- His writing idol was H.G Wells.
- As a writer of science fiction, John Wyndham had little interest in the American science fiction craze during the 1950s.
- Enjoying the success from his career, Wyndham disliked the attention that came with it. Not long before his passing, a biographer approached him with the idea of writing Wyndham's life story. He firmly refused.
- In the early 1960s, Wyndham began writing a sequel to "The Midwich Cuckoos." After completing six chapters, he abandoned the whole thing.
- Suffered a heart attack at his home while gardening. A second attack caused his passing.
- Despite his success as a writer, John Wyndham resided at the same address for over 30 years. In London, he had a single, modest room at the Pen Club.
- Claimed to have been greatly surprised by the success of his novel, "Day of the Triffids.".
- Shortly after the end of the second world war, the writer decided to have his future work published under a different name - John Wyndham.
- During the summer and winter months, Wyndham used to occasionally spend time writing at the house of a family of friends at the village of Steep, Hampshire, England.
- Was a big fan of the British radio soap opera, "The Archers.".
- Found initial success as a writer during the 1920s, courtesy of working for different pulp magazines.
- Served in both the army and the civil service during the second world war.
- Reputedly shy around women, John Wyndham revealed a romantic side to his character, via his novel "Trouble with Lichen.".
- When John Wyndham eventually married, his friends claimed to having no idea that he even had a romantic partner, let alone that he was getting married.
- In his will, the writer gave explicit instructions that all his personal papers be destroyed.
- In his novel The Day of the Triffids, the lead character says "the Triffid invasion is cinematic"; the book has been adapted to film once and as a miniseries twice.
- In his book The Day of the Triffids he likens the Triffids to a collective intelligence like an ant colony or a bee hive. Individually, they seem less intelligent but together they are bent on the destruction of the human race. This prefigures the Borg in the Star Trek franchise.
- His book The Day of the Triffids may have been an influence on 28 Days Later: Bill Masen/Jim waking up in hospital; characters say "I love you very much"; both film and the book describe how each mutual disaster has spread to Paris and New York; sending out a signal to fellow survivors, etc.
- Wyndham's blind character Bill Masen in The Day of the Triffids may have been inspired by the poem "in the street of the blind, the one-eyed man is king".
- His novel The Day of the Triffids was compared with the works of hg-wells-39224 due to his ability to create something so fantastic and frightening but entirely plausible. Also, both the Triffids and the Tripods from Welles' War of the Worlds begin the tri and there are other antecedents like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Quatermass which had tripodal Martians.
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