Author Guide · Science Fiction
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John Wyndham was 48 when he became John Wyndham. Born John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris in 1903, he had spent twenty years selling stories to American pulp magazines under other combinations of his names, served as a cipher operator in the Royal Corps of Signals, and landed in Normandy a few days after D-Day. Then, in December 1951, Michael Joseph published The Day of the Triffids: a London where almost everyone has been blinded overnight and tall, venomous plants walk out of the farms. Over the next seventeen years he wrote the English village invaded by golden-eyed children, the ocean taken over by something never seen, and a farming community that kills its own mutants. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1935–2009 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
John Wyndham published twelve novels, two of them after his death, plus several story collections. The best known are The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). Start with The Day of the Triffids, the book that made his name and set the pattern for the rest.
Where to Start with John Wyndham
If you want the classic
→ The Day of the Triffids (1951) — the 1951 novel that made his name.
If you want the one most often taught in schools
→ The Chrysalids (1955) — mutation, faith and telepathy in a future Labrador.
If you want something creepier
→ The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) — one English village and 61 golden-eyed children.
If you want something short
→ Plan for Chaos (2009) — a family novel about a boy and his unseen friend.
12 John Wyndham Books, in Order
The Secret People
His first novel, published as John Beynon. A young couple crash their plane in the Sahara, which is being flooded to make a new sea, and are taken prisoner by a race of small people living in caverns underground. It belongs to the pulp adventure stories he wrote before the war.
The Day of the Triffids
Bill Masen, a biologist who works with triffids, tall carnivorous plants that can walk and sting, wakes in a London hospital with his eyes bandaged and finds that a green light show in the sky has blinded nearly everyone who watched it. He joins other sighted survivors and searches for Josella Playton as the triffids close in. It was the first book published under the name John Wyndham, was nominated for the International Fantasy Award in 1952, and has been filmed once and made for BBC television twice, in 1981 and 2009.
The Kraken Wakes
Told by Mike Watson, a radio reporter who works with his wife Phyllis for the English Broadcasting Company. Fireballs fall into the deepest parts of the oceans, ships begin to sink, “sea tanks” come ashore to carry people off, and finally the polar ice melts and floods London. The invaders are never seen. Published in the US as Out of the Deeps; The New York Times said it would have a more lasting effect than Triffids.
The Chrysalids
Generations after a catastrophe called the Tribulation, the farming community of Waknuk in Labrador kills or banishes anyone born with a mutation. David Strorm, son of a fiercely devout father, is one of a group of children who can share thoughts and must hide it. When his little sister Petra turns out to be the strongest telepath of all, they have to run for the Fringes. Published in the US as Re-Birth.
The Seeds of Time
His second collection under the Wyndham name, gathering short stories from the early 1950s that range from comedy to time travel, including “Chronoclasm”, “Survival” and “Dumb Martian”.
The Midwich Cuckoos
Everyone in the English village of Midwich falls unconscious for a day, the “Dayout”. Months later every woman of child-bearing age is pregnant. The 61 children have golden eyes, grow fast, think as two group minds and can force others to do what they want. The elderly Gordon Zellaby, who has taught them, decides they have to be destroyed. Filmed as Village of the Damned in 1960 and 1995, and as a Sky series in 2022; Margaret Atwood called it his masterpiece.
The Outward Urge
Linked episodes following several generations of the Troon family as humans move from orbiting space stations to the Moon, Mars and beyond. It was credited to “John Wyndham and Lucas Parkes”, though Lucas Parkes was another of his own names.
Trouble with Lichen
Two biochemists, Diana Brackley and Francis Saxover, separately find that a rare lichen yields a drug, Antigerone, that slows ageing so much that people could live 200 to 300 years. Francis secretly gives it to his family; Diana opens a beauty spa and gives low doses to influential women, believing that if it went public only powerful men would get it. The BBC adapted it for radio in 1962.
Consider Her Ways and Others
In the title novella a woman wakes in a future where there are no men and women are bred into castes, like an ant colony. The collection also includes “Random Quest”, filmed in 1971 as Quest for Love.
Chocky
David Gore worries that his eleven-year-old son Matthew is too old for an imaginary friend, until it becomes clear that “Chocky” is an alien mind scouting for new worlds, and the government starts to take an interest. It began as a novelette in Amazing Stories in March 1963 and was the last novel published in his lifetime. Thames Television made it into a children’s series in 1984.
Web
Published ten years after his death. A group of settlers sets out to found an ideal community on a remote Pacific island, once used for nuclear testing, and finds the island taken over by spiders that act together.
Plan for Chaos
Written around the time of The Day of the Triffids but rejected by publishers in Britain and America, it was found in the John Wyndham Archive at the University of Liverpool and published by Liverpool University Press in 2009. Photographer Johnny Farthing finds dead women who look exactly like his fiancée, and doubles of himself, and is taken to a hidden base where a former Nazi is cloning followers to start a nuclear war.
In What Order to Read John Wyndham
None of his novels continues another, so you can read them in any order. The useful division is by name: the books signed John Beynon in the 1930s are pulp adventures, and the work that made him famous all comes from 1951 onwards, signed John Wyndham.
If you read in publication order from 1951, you can watch the threat move closer: from the whole world in The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes, to one community in The Chrysalids, one village in The Midwich Cuckoos and one family in Chocky. Leave Web and Plan for Chaos until last; neither was published while he was alive.
A reading path
1. The Day of the Triffids (1951)
2. The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
3. The Chrysalids (1955)
4. The Kraken Wakes (1953)
5. Chocky (1968)
Everything Else John Wyndham Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels as John Beynon
2
2 books · 1935–1936
- 1935Foul Play Suspecteda detective novel
- 1936Planet Planealso published as Stowaway to Mars and The Space Machine
Story collections
7
7 books · 1954–2024
- 1954Jizzlehis first collection under the Wyndham name
- 1973Sleepers of Marsearly stories, published after his death
- 1973Wanderers of Timeearly stories
- 1973The Best of John Wyndhamselected stories
- 1979Exiles on Asperusearly stories
- 2003No Place Like Earthstories from across his career
- 2024Technical Slipcollected stories
The years · 1903–1969
Quick facts about John Wyndham
- Known for
- John Wyndham is known for English science fiction in which ordinary people face a catastrophe arriving in an ordinary place, from walking plants in London to alien children in a village.
- 1903
- Born in Dorridge, Warwickshire
- 1931
- Starts selling stories to American magazines
- 1969
- Dies in Petersfield, Hampshire
- Born
- 10 July 1903, Dorridge, Warwickshire, as John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris
- Died
- 11 March 1969, Petersfield, Hampshire, aged 65
- Education
- Bedales School, near Petersfield, 1918–1921
- War
- Censor at the Ministry of Information, then cipher operator in the Royal Corps of Signals
- Pen names
- John Beynon Harris, John Beynon, Lucas Parkes, John Wyndham
- Married
- Grace Isobel Wilson, a teacher, in 1963
The red mark is 1951: The Day of the Triffids, the first book published under the name John Wyndham.
How John Wyndham Writes: Catastrophe in an Ordinary Place
Wyndham’s big novels follow one pattern: an impossible event lands in a recognisable English setting and is reported by a sensible, middle-class narrator. Bill Masen is a biologist, Mike Watson a radio reporter, David Gore a worried father. The fireballs in The Kraken Wakes and the visitors in The Midwich Cuckoos are never properly seen; the story is in how people, committees and governments respond.
He uses the catastrophe to ask practical, uncomfortable questions. Who should the sighted survivors in Triffids help, and who must they leave? Should Midwich’s children be killed before they become too strong? Does a drug that extends life belong to everyone or only to the powerful? The Chrysalids turns the same logic on religion and the idea of what counts as “normal”.
Brian Aldiss called this kind of book a “cosy catastrophe”, in which comfortable survivors rebuild after everyone else has gone. Later critics, Margaret Atwood among them, have disputed that: Wyndham’s narrators see murders and suicides and are often in mortal danger, and he wrote after serving in a war in which not everyone died either.
Frequently asked questions about John Wyndham’s books
How many books has John Wyndham written?
He published twelve novels: three as John Beynon in the 1930s, seven as John Wyndham between 1951 and 1968, and two more after his death, Web (1979) and Plan for Chaos (2009). There are also several story collections. This page covers 12 key books: ten of the novels and two collections.
What are John Wyndham’s books in order?
The Secret People (1935), The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), The Seeds of Time (1956), The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), The Outward Urge (1959), Trouble with Lichen (1960), Consider Her Ways and Others (1961), Chocky (1968), Web (1979) and Plan for Chaos (2009).
Where should I start with John Wyndham?
The Day of the Triffids (1951), the book that made his name and the clearest example of his method. If you want something shorter and stranger, try The Midwich Cuckoos.
What is John Wyndham’s most famous book?
The Day of the Triffids, about a world blinded overnight and overrun by walking, stinging plants. It was listed in the BBC’s Big Read in 2003 and was on a Royal Mail stamp in 2021. The Midwich Cuckoos, filmed as Village of the Damned, comes close.
Was John Wyndham his real name?
Partly. He was born John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris and wrote under different combinations of those names: John Beynon Harris and John Beynon before the war, and John Wyndham from 1951. The Outward Urge is credited to him and “Lucas Parkes”, also himself.
Do the Triffids books have sequels?
Not by Wyndham. Simon Clark wrote an authorised sequel, The Night of the Triffids (2001), set 25 years later and following Bill Masen’s son David.
Which John Wyndham books have been adapted?
The Day of the Triffids as a film released in Britain in 1962 and as BBC series in 1981 and 2009; The Midwich Cuckoos as Village of the Damned (1960 and 1995) and a Sky series (2022); Chocky as a Thames Television series (1984). Most of his novels have also been dramatised on BBC radio.
What is a “cosy catastrophe”?
A label the writer Brian Aldiss gave to post-war disaster novels in which a comfortable group of survivors rebuilds after everyone else has died, with The Day of the Triffids as his main example. Many later critics, including Margaret Atwood, have disagreed, pointing out how much death and danger the book contains.
What did John Wyndham do in the Second World War?
He worked as a censor at the Ministry of Information, then joined the army as a corporal cipher operator in the Royal Corps of Signals. He landed in Normandy a few days after D-Day.
Is John Wyndham still alive?
No. He died on 11 March 1969 in Petersfield, Hampshire, aged 65, a year after Chocky was published.
Footnotes
- John Wyndham — Wikipedia
- The Day of the Triffids — Wikipedia
- The Midwich Cuckoos — Wikipedia
- The Chrysalids — Wikipedia
- The Kraken Wakes — Wikipedia
- The Day of the Triffids, excerpt — Reading Group Guides
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.”
— John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids (1951), the opening line
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