John Wyndham was born in 1903. Until 1911 he lived in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, and then in many other parts of England. After attending several English prepatory schools, he attended Bedales between 1918 and 1921.

John Wyndham was not initially a professional writer; he began writing short stories for sale in 1925, having already tried to make a career in law, farming, commercial art and advertising. Throughout the 1930's he wrote many stories for periodicals, mainly American, under a wide selection of pseudonyms, and also tried his hand at detective stories.

In 1946, after spending the Second World War in the English civil service and later the British Army, he resumed writing for the American market. During the early 1950's he began experimenting with the idea of speculative fiction, a new kind of science fiction employed in two of his most successful novels, The Day of the Triffids, and the Chrysalids. John Wyndham died in March 1969.