This exhibition consists largely of material from the Estate Collection
of John Wyndham, whose science fiction novels are among the most potent
descriptions of the collective unconscious of 1950s Britain. In his four major
novels The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes
(1953), The Chrysalids (1955) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957)
the seductive dread of invasion is present in different forms. Whether it be
from carnivorous plants, aliens from the ocean depths, post-atomic war mutants
or children with paranormal powers, the threat to a normality so painfully won
after the Second World War is as much from social change as from invading
monsters. The shadows of the Cold War and Britain's loss of Empire creep
fitfully though his fictions as his characters find their stability undermined
and their moral values questioned.
Science fiction is speculative fiction. If the speculation is often
focused upon technology and "big" ideas such as space travel, it just
as often examines the social nature of our changing times. Once the future was
little different from the past: now our world is regularly transformed. If we
do not live in the glossy art-deco world of the sf magazines of the twenties
and thirties, we live in a world equally distant from that era's everyday
"normality". The atomic bomb, the home computer, industrial robots,
virtual reality, the collapse of entire economic systems: all these are implied
by science fiction and in some cases shaped by it. This exhibition therefore
also contains material from the Science Fiction Foundation Collection, the
largest and most important collection of science fiction in the European Union,
deposited with the University of Liverpool Library in 1993, and other deposits
such as the Olaf Stapledon and Eric Frank Russell archives. It has been
selected to show aspects of science fiction over time and and something of its
international nature: a body of literature whose roots lie in British, French,
Czech, Russian and American fiction, which was crystallised by a Luxembourg
immigrant to the USA and whose greatest figure during the 1930s (and possibly
most influential ever) was a philosopher from Liverpool.
The Wyndham Archive contains original manuscripts/typescripts of most of
his major works, as well as drafts, outlines, and so far unpublished material.
It contains several thousand pages of letters, to and from publishers, editors,
and fans, as well as a unique collection of letters written to Grace Wilson
(later his wife) between 1939 and 1945, which shed light both on his own
thoughts and the events of the War years. What is on display can only be
selective, but it is hoped that it shows a picture of the field through the
work of one of its greatest exponents and demonstrates the value of the science
fiction collections in the Special Collections and Archives department of the
University Library. Within a number of days following its acquisition it was
used in research. We hope, therefore, that the "return of the triffids"
to public view will encourage further use.
We are actively seeking further funding for
cataloguing and preserving this valuable material and would be happy to discuss
our plans.
The Archive was obtained through a grant from the National Lottery
Heritage Fund. We would also like to thank the Friends of the University of
Liverpool, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Iain M. Banks, the 1997 World Fantasy
Convention, and other individuals and groups who contributed towards the
purchase of this collection. For their help in presenting and hosting this
exhibition, we thank Ian Qualtrough (Graphics Unit) and the staff of the
University Art Gallery, Ann Compton, Matthew Clough and Carol Clarke. We are
also happy to acknowledge the support given by Blackwell's University Bookshop.
Andy Sawyer Science Fiction Collections Librarian
Dr Maureen M. Watry Head of Special Collections and Archives
Few writers coin words which become part of the language. The Czech
playwright Karel Capek, in 1922, used the word "robot": in 1984
William Gibson referred to "cyberspace". John Wyndham's contribution
to the language is perhaps rarer: a symbolic rather than actual noun. There is
nothing we can actually identify as a triffid. But since 1951, when The Day of
the Triffids was first published, people have been heard pointing to huge
menacing plants and saying half-jokingly "That looks like a triffid."
There were no robots in 1922, nor for decades afterwards. Plant geneticists
have so far not succeeded in developing a triffid.
Yet.
"A modified form of what is unhappily called 'science
fiction'" is how The Day of the Triffids is described within the
Penguin editions of John Wyndham's books. This description - probably Wyndham's
own - is misleading on a number of counts, although in a perverse way it is
logical enough. In fact, Triffids was certainly a significant enough
change from Wyndham's pre-War writing to be seen as a new departure, but its
achievement was as much as a breakthrough into a new, mass market as a
modification of what he had been writing since the early 'thirties. Following
World War Two, however, he found himself looking for a new market. Increasingly
dissatisfied by what he saw as the gadgetry and pulpish writing of the American
magazines, and perhaps spurred by his brother Vivian's success in achieving
publication of his light comedy thrillers, he turned to the more upmarket Colliers
Magazine for "Revolt of the Triffids". It was an instant
success, published in hardback by Michael Joseph and in paperback by Penguin,
two publishers not known for their science fiction lines. Triffids and
succeeding novels made Wyndham a household name: perhaps the first science fiction
writer since H.G. Wells to become so.
The Day of the Triffids is one of the best-known science
fiction novels in the English language. Filmed, televised, adapted for radio
and translated into numerous languages, it reached far beyond the traditional
audience for sf. The claim that it was "a modified form" reassured a
mass market that this was nothing to do with skimpily-clad damsels menaced by
bug-eyed monsters. It also annoyed a few sf fans who felt that their genre had
been slighted. In fact, Wyndham's "modifications" were a return to
the cooler, more thoughtful style of science fiction in the traditions of H.G.
Wells, Olaf Stapledon and Sydney Fowler Wright rather than the
"gosh-wow!" fantasies of Edgar Rice Burroughs or E.E. Smith.
Wyndham's approach also reflected the concerns of a new, post-War era of Cold
War and (in Britain) Imperial decline.
Triffids thrilled its readership with its picture of a
world overcome by mobile, flesh-eating plants. In fact, Wyndham enriched the
traditional "disaster" scenario by having his killer plants safely
under control until a second change kicks in: the blinding of the human race by
a meteorite shower which (it is hinted) is the result of an accident in a
satellite defence system. It is also hinted that the triffids, farmed for their
oil, are the result of biological manipulation behind the Iron Curtain: a
scenario rich in images of paranoia. The novel soon became a bestseller and was
translated into numerous languages. The Science Fiction Foundation Collection
holds copies in French, German, Danish, Japanese, Hungarian, and other
languages, many from Wyndham's own personal collection.
Broadcast on BBC Radio in 1957, it was filmed by Steve Sekely in 1963.
Criticised now for its "men in brocolli suits" approach to special
effects, it was received better at the time, with praise from John Carnell,
editor of New Worlds magazine and Wyndham himself. Although the subplot
involving Janette Scott and Keiron Moore stranded in a lighthouse until they
discover that the triffids are vulnerable to sea water is remarkably weak, some
of the early scenes of people reacting to their sudden blindness are both
terrifying and moving. A superior BBC TV serial in 1981 kept more closely to
the plot and introduced organically creepy triffids. The novel remains popular
today: the illustrations by botanical artist Bryan Poole for the short-lived
part-work Science Fiction Classics (1998) suggest a realistic biology
for these walking plants.
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (1903-1969) was a popular if
minor science fiction writer, a reliable provider of stories to British and
American magazines. As "John Beynon" or "John Beynon
Harris" or any of several variants of his names, he was known in the field
of science fiction during the 1930s but hardly a significant figure outside it.
Attempting to rebuild his writing career after World War Two he hit upon the
idea of combining two "disaster" scenarios which, together captured
the unease of post-War Britain: a sudden blindness (possibly caused by the
failure of a satellite defence system) resulting in the helplessness of
humanity in the face of a species of biologically engineered carnivorous
plants.
First published under the name "John Wyndham" as Revolt of
the Triffids in Colliers Weekly, Jan 6 1951 [1] this new
novel developed a sense of unease right from the confusion of time in the first
sentence - which does not appear in such uncanny form in typescript [3].
The Archive also contains a draft of the novel in the authors hand in which the
published opening appears [4], but much discussion between the
characters concerning the nature of the new society which will arise from the
old is eventually deleted from the published version.
The Day of the Triffids became one of best-known science
fiction novels of all time, a Penguin book [2] and adapted for radio,
film [5] and television. Although criticised today for its irrelevant
sub-plot and absurd ending, it was well-reviewed in the influential New Worlds
magazine [6] and contains a number of remarkable scenes of suspense and
horror. Wyndham's "triffids" (described [7]) clearly struck a
chord with the reading public. The novel is still in print today (it will be
reissued later in the year as a Penguin Modern Classic) and the word
"triffid" can still be heard in garden centres as people contemplate
huge plants. Botanical illustrator Bryan Poole is one of a number of people who
have speculated on what the biology of such a plant might be [8].
T he success of The Day of the Triffids resulted in a number of
letters from appreciators of his work, asking questions about it or begging for
a sequel. The Archive contains an exchange of correspondence between Wyndham
and Margaret Lowe [1], an enthusiastic and perceptive fan of his novels
who herself published stories in the magazine Science Fantasy (May
1954 and September 1957), while A. Bertram Chandler [2] was one of a
number of science fiction writers who wrote appreciative letters. Wyndham's own
letter [3] to film director Steve Sekely sheds light on his reaction to
the 1963 film, while his exchange of correspondence with Lionel Gough of
Marlborough College [4] is not only evidence of the attraction this
"modified form of what is unhappily called 'science fiction'" had to
a more middle-class audience but shows Wyndham's reluctance to write sequels.
Reviews kept in Wyndham's scrap-book [5] - including one from the Liverpool
Daily Post - show the enthusiastic reaction to what was thought by
many to be a newcomer's first novel. The Day of the Triffids has been
translated into numerous foreign languages [6 - 11].
John Wyndham was a new name but by no means a new author. John Wyndham
Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was born in 1903. His father was a barrister and his
mother the daughter of a Birmingham ironmaster. Following his parents'
separation when he was eight, Wyndham spent three years at various schools
before entering Bedales, where he remained until he was 18. Various
unsuccessful attempts at a career - farming, law, advertising - followed, and
he began to write for various periodicals. As John Beynon or John Beynon Harris
he had published fiction in the American sf magazines since 1931. His first
appearance was a slogan: the winning entry in the competition to devise a
catchy phrase for the cover of Air Wonder Stories. [1]
Wyndham's slogan ("Future Flying Fiction") was actually published in
its sister magazine Wonder Stories in September 1930: the competition
had come too late to revive AWS's fortunes. His first story, "Worlds to
Barter" was also published in Wonder Stories [2] and numerous
others followed. The Secret People, [3 - 4] first serialised in
the magazine The Passing Show, was published in 1935, followed by
another science fiction story, Stowaway to Mars, which was published
as Planet Plane in 1936. Foul Play Suspected, a detective story,
reflected his experiences in the advertising world. [7] By 1937 he was
already described in a British fanzine [8] as "the best of our modern
science fiction authors". John Beynon Harris was a well-known name to
readers of the British sf magazine Tales of Wonder (1937-1942) and had
two stories (under different pseudonyms) in the final issue of the short-lived Fantasy
[6]. One of these was "Child of Power", an early variant of
his later use in novels like The Chrysalids or Chocky of the
theme of a child with unusual powers of esp: in this case, the power to
"see" radio waves. An early draft of this story bears the title
"Frustrate Glimpse". [5]
Recent research has suggested that Plan for Chaos [1]
(which also exists in the Archive as Fury of Creation) may have been
written between 1945 and the publication of The Day of the Triffids,
but it was never published. A number of highly successful novels followed Triffids.
Among Wyndham's other novels were The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) [3]
filmed as Village of the Damned in 1960, and Chocky (1968) [2],
[6] and [7]. Both feature children with "powers".
Midwich, the story of a sleepy English village where all the adult females are
impregnated by an alien visitation is sometimes seen as a foreshadowing of the
coming generational conflicts of the sixties. The bleakness of the Darwinian
conflict between the hybrid "Children", powerful but few, and the
weaker but enormously numerous human race is summed up in the dilemma:
"You cannot afford not to kill us, for if you don't, you are finished.
" Chocky is a more benign alien visitation, but the moral warning
is still there.
Numerous unpublished and uncompleted, or later reworked, stories feature
in the Archive. Much work remains to be done on them. An untitled "atom
war" story [5] appears in several drafts. Six chapters of an
unfinished novel called Midwich Main appear in the Archive [8].
It seems that Wyndham was asked to write this in connection with a sequel to
the 1960 film Village of the Damned which eventually became Children of the
Damned (1963). Other unpublished material and alternative drafts exist in
the Archive, including a chapter and draft outline for a novel which eventually
mutated into The Chrysalids (1955) [4] and [10]. Two
sentences from The Chrysalids [9] expressed a similar deep
unease with social competition as would be found in Midwich: "In
loyalty to their kind, they cannot tolerate our rise. In loyalty to our kind,
we cannot tolerate their obstruction." Slightly reworded, they appear in
the counter-culture rock band Jefferson Airplane's 1968 song "Crown of
Creation".
Other novels include The Outward Urge (1959) - written in
"collaboration" with Lucas Parkes, two more of Wyndham's string of
names, and Trouble with Lichen (1960).
The Kraken Wakes was another invasion story [1] and [2]
but this time from the ocean deeps. Wyndham's gift for writing verse enabled
him to produce the "Xenobathite Song" [3] as an example of the
mindless frivolity with which people may cope with conditions of utmost terror.
By the time of Wyndham's death in 1969 his essentially English,
middle-class science fiction had been overtaken by the "New Wave" and
a much more experimental style of writing. Yet he as much as anyone else had
attempted to bring sf back towards the literary mainstream in which authors
like H. G. Wells had worked. Newspaper reactions to his death [7],
including a typescript copy of the Times obituary of March 12 1997 [8]
were saved by his brother Vivian Beynon Harris.
The Archive of Liverpool writer Eric Frank Russell contains a letter to
him [6] from fellow sf writer Sam Youd, who as "John Christopher"
is sometimes seen as Wyndham's rival and successor in the 1950s/60s disaster
novel. Russell himself was the first British writer to win a "Hugo"
award, presented annually by the World Science Fiction Convention in a number
of categories. Russell's Hugo [4] (the award is named after Hugo
Gernsback, who founded the first American magazine dedicated to science
fiction) was for the short story "Allamagoosa", a satire on military
bureaucracy published in Astounding, May 1955. [5]
During the War, Wyndham served as a censor and then in the Royal Corps
of Signals. A collection of letters written to Grace Wilson, whom he married on
her retirement from schoolteaching in 1963, survive as part of the Wyndham
Archive. Beginning in 1939, on hearing the declaration of war, [1] and
ending in 1945, they contain vivid descriptions of air-raids in wartime London
and express Wyndham's emotional turmoil during the war years. In many ways,
they form the transition between "John Beynon Harris" and "John
Wyndham".
The selection of letters presented here offers an account of Vivian
Beynon Harris's report of the bombing of Coventry [2], a description of
an air raid while Wyndham was on firewatching duty [3], an encounter
with bureaucracy while on firewatch [4] and Wyndham's despair on facing
a world wrecked by war, "a cross between a preparatory school and a
lunatic asylum" [5]. Also presented are examples of the poems
Wyndham wrote to Grace Wilson on occasions such as birthday and Valentine's Day
[6] and [7]. These very private productions - often handmade -
show his love of language and his sometimes ironic and insecure sense of
humour.
The size of the University's collections of science fiction depends on
the definition of "science fiction". Perhaps the biggest influence on
science fiction writer after H.G. Wells was the philosopher Olaf Stapledon,
author of an epic future-historywhich explored social, political, and
biological evolution over millions of years [1] and [2].
Stapledon, whose archive is held in the Sydney Jones Library, did not see
himself as a "science fiction writer". Neither, we can assume, did
John Wilkins, formerly Bishop of Chester, although his 17th Century suggestion
that there may be life on other worlds [3] is one which is central to
the form. (Other such speculations, such as J. P. Joule's "The Plurality
of Inhabited Worlds", a paper delivered to the Birkenhead Literary and
Scientific Society in 1860) can be found in the Special Collections &
Archives Department, Sydney Jones Library.) Robert Cromie's A Plunge into
Space [4] is one of a number of fictional speculations of
interplanetary travel written during the late Nineteenth century.
The first "dedicated" American magazine of science fiction was
Amazing Stories edited by Hugo Gernsback, first published April 1926.
Gernsback's belief that "scientifiction" was an instructive form of
literature which offered "charming romance intermingled with scientific
fact and prophetic vision" is illustrated by early issues such as the
August 1927 number [1] which featured reprints by Wells (The War of
the Worlds) and the biologist Julian Huxley ("The Tissue-Culture
King": a tale of bio-engineering which influenced The Day of the
Triffids). The cover of the September 1928 number [3] illustrates
how Gernsback thought science fiction worked: fact and theory combined by the
author's pen inspired by a cosmic imagination. The speculations of the French
illustrator/writer Albert Robida [2], first published in 1882, offer an
amused and amusing slant on the history of the coming century.
The importance of the Science Fiction Collections at Liverpool go beyond
the book and magazine collections. Fanzines (magazines published by fans for
fans) are an important part of the history of science fiction, often containing
records of the early writings of its major figures. Zenith 4 (February
1942) [1] features the cover illustration of co-editor Harry Turner and
contains the short story "The Awakening" by Arthur C. Clarke. The
usefulness of his post-war idea of radio/television broadcast using satellites
was confirmed when he was received the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters
from the University of Liverpool [2]. The "samizdat" copy of
Harry Harrison's "Deathworld" novels [3] dates from a time
when Western science fiction was hard to come by behind the Iron Curtain. It is
one of a number of sf books translated, typed up and circulated by individuals
or fan groups which are now part of the Science Fiction Foundation Collection.
It was donated by the Moscow University Science Fiction Society as an example
of these historic documents, which are part of the story of social and
political dissidence in Eastern Europe.
The term "cosy catastrophe" has often been used to describe Wyndham's
fiction, implying, perhaps, a kind of disaster fiction which is not too
threatening, which induces anxiety rather than terror and which allows the
reader to revel in end-of-the-world fantasies in which we, of course, are the
survivors and can do what we want in a world open to our looting. While this is
a powerful element in Wyndham, and certainly one which created his success with
an audience unfamiliar with the analytical and subversive (rather than
escapist) elements of science fiction, it can be stressed too much. Recent
writing on Wyndham has emphasised the ambiguity of his reaction to the break-up
of the established order and the sense of social and perhaps even personal
estrangement in his fiction. Although much of the "New wave" science
fiction of the 1960s can be seen as a reaction to an old-fashioned
"middle-brow and middle-class" element with which Wyndham can be
identified, with the benefit of hindsight we can see much more challenging
elements which scarcely allow for a neat, happy-ever-after re-establishment of
the old social order. Brian Aldiss, in Trillion Year Spree, wisely
reminds us that, in The Day of the Triffids, "everything goes to
pot with no possibility of a subsequent cleaning up. The map has been
irrevocably changed."
As Maureen Speller suggests in her article cited below, Wyndham is a
writer many of us encountered in childhood and may not have re-read since. This
-- and his association with science fiction -- is perhaps one of the reasons
why Wyndham has rarely received critical attention, even within the science
fiction field. One of the best analyses of his work is still that by the
Australian writer Owen Webster, written in 1959 but only published in a 1975
fanzine. It was not until Thomas and Alice Clareson and Rowland Wymer turned
their attention to his writings in the early 1990s that a significant
revaluation was begun. Now, we can see that Wyndham marks an important place
between the technophiliac space opera of the 1930s and the ironical,
socially-oriented science fiction of the late 1960s. He was by no means the
only writer to explore these areas of anxiety, but he was one of the very few
to achieve an audience outside those who knew and understood that what they
were reading was "science fiction".
Following Wyndham's death in 1969 much of his pre-War sf was collected
and Web -- a novel he worked on for some years before his death -- was
published in 1979. Although Wyndham's reputation largely rests upon The Day
of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Midwich Cuckoos and
The Chrysalids, much of the rest of his work explores -- in a tone
varying from whimsy to outright despair -- the social and technological changes
of the society he lived in. In this (though lacking his political involvement
and utopianism) he was very much in the tradition of H.G. Wells. Like Wells, he
was able to develop scenarios which, though not original in idea were fresh in
treatment. Brian Aldiss again, writing on Wyndham in the Dictionary of
National Biography, says that "Wyndham's importance in the rebirth of
British science fiction after the war of 1939 - 1945 was second to none."
As a writer who linked sf with the mass mainstream of popular fiction to
examine the imaginative truth of the changing world he lived in, he still has
much to offer today.
For more information contact Andy Sawyer, Science Fiction Foundation Collection, University of Liverpool Library, P.O. Box 123 Liverpool L69 3DA, UK . asawyer@liverpool.ac.uk
http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/exhibs/triffidcat.html