The Chrysalids

John Wyndham's classic science fiction novel, published as an Essential for the first time

'WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT!' 
 
It is many years since God sent the Tribulation to punish the forebears for their sins, and in the rural settlement of Waknuk David Strorm's father decries any and all blasphemies against nature. Little does he realise that David and his cousin Rosalind, have their own secret aberration which would label them as mutants. But as they grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery, or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands. . . 
 
'An outstanding success' New York Times

Perfect timing, astringent humour . . . One of the few authors whose compulsive readability is a compliment to the intelligence

Remains fresh and disturbing in an entirely unexpected way

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote short stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge, Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. John Wyndham died in March 1969.

David Strorm's father doesn't approve of Angus Morton's unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realize that his own son, his niece Rosalind and their friends, have their own secret aberration which would label them as mutants. But as David and Rosalind grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands ... 
 
The Chrysalids is a post-nuclear story of genetic mutation in a devastated world, which tells of the lengths the intolerant will go to to keep themselves pure.

Six classic BBC radio adaptations

John Wyndham: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

Six classic BBC Radio dramatisations of stories by one of Britain's most popular science fiction authors.

Bill Nighy, Sarah Parish, Barbara Shelley and Peter Sallis are among the cast in these six classic BBC Radio dramatisations. 
 
John Wyndham’s quietly menacing post-apocalyptic tales are enduringly popular, and these gripping, atmospheric radio adaptations of his classic fiction are resonant with terror and suspense. In 
 
The Day of the Triffids, first broadcast in 1968, most people have been left blind after a meteor shower, and lethal carnivorous triffids are roaming the land. 
 
The Kraken Wakes, dramatised for radio in 1998, is a thrilling story of monsters from the deep, alien invasion and ecological disaster. 
 
The Chrysalids, first broadcast in 1981, explores the dangers of being different, while the 1989 adaptation of short story Survival focuses on the lengths people will go to in order to survive. 
 
The Midwich Cuckoos, broadcast in 2003, is a disturbing tale of a village sealed off from the world for a day, and subsequently taken over by terrifying, inhuman children. 
 
Dramatised for radio in 1998, Chocky is a chilling tale of a boy who appears to be communicating with an invisible friend. 
 
Also included is Beware the Stare! a half-hour BBC Radio 4 documentary looking at The Midwich Cuckoos in print and on screen. 
 
Note: These are the BBC Transcription Services versions of The Day of the Triffids, prepared for 
sale to overseas territories. At the time, 12 minutes of material was deleted from these episodes to bring down the running time. However, these deleted scenes have been recovered and are included as bonus extra content at the end of the final episode of The Day of the Triffids.

The Day of the Triffids

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A stunning new clothbound edition of one of the most famous science-fiction novels of the twentieth century, designed by the acclaimed Coralie-Bickford Smith. 
 
When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids - huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to 'walk', feeding on human flesh - can have their day...

John Wyndham was born in 1903 in the Midlands. After leaving school, he tried his hand at several careers, including farming, law and advertising, before starting to write stories in 1925. During the war he worked as a censor in the Ministry of Information and afterwards served in the Army. The Day of The Triffids was published in 1951, and was followed by many other famous works of science fiction, including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos. Wyndham died in 1969.

Stowaway to Mars

'It was a desert. A vista of reddish rocks and drifted sand, arid and hot, extending to the limits of their view. A dreary waste upon which nothing moved or grew . . .' 
 
For British pilot Dale Curtance the Keuntz Prize - to be awarded to the first person to take a spaceship to another planet and back - is the ultimate challenge. Not only has he to build a ship to survive the journey, assemble a top-notch crew and choose a destination, he's also got to beat the Russians and Americans. 
 
Soon the GLORIA MUNDI blasts off from Salisbury Plain, bound for Mars. There's only one problem - a stowaway called Joan. Not only does her presence wreck calculations and threaten the mission, but her tale suggests that Mars may be a more dangerous destination than they ever expected. 
 
'Perhaps the best writer of science fiction England has ever produced' Stephen King

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories in 1925. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge, Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. John Wyndham died in March 1969.

For British pilot Dale Curtance, the Keuntz Prize - to be awarded to the first person to take a spaceship to another planet and back - is the ultimate challenge. Not only has he to build a ship to survive the journey, assemble a top-notch crew and choose a destination, he's also got to beat the Russians and Americans. 
 
Soon the GLORIA MUNDI blasts off from Salisbury Plain, bound for Mars. There's only one problem - a stowaway called Joan. Not only does her presence wreck calculations and threaten the mission, but her tale suggests that Mars may be a more dangerous destination than they ever expected.

The Secret People

'The Sun Bird was beginning to travel fast, close to the edge of the whirlpool. They could look right down into the hollow of spinning water' 
 
While flying over Africa's New Sea, a water project in the heart of the Sahara desert, Mark Sunnet's rocket plane crashes and is sucked through a hole in the desert floor into a strange, cavernous new world. 
 
There, he and his partner Margaret encounter the survivors of an ancient race of underground dwellers whose whole existence is now threatened. Captured and forced to live with other prisoners taken from the surface, the pair know that they must escape before the waters above drown them all . . . 
 
The Secret People, published in 1935, is John Wyndham's first novel. 
 
'Perhaps the best writer of science fiction England has ever produced' Stephen King

While flying over Africa's New Sea, a water project in the heart of the Sahara desert, Mark Sunnet's rocket plane crashes and is sucked through a hole in the desert floor into a strange, cavernous new world. 
 
There, he and his partner Margaret encounter the survivors of an ancient race of underground dwellers whose whole existence is now threatened. Captured and forced to live with other prisoners taken from the surface, the pair know that they must escape before the waters above drown them all . . .

And Others

Consider Her Ways

The six stories in Consider Her Ways: And Others, the second collecton of John Wyndham's short tales, continue his exploration of the science fiction staple - what if? 
 
In the title story we are introduced to a world where all the men have been killed by a virus and women continue to survive in a strict caste system - bottom of the heap are the mothers. In others we meet the man who accidentally summons a devil and then has to find a way of getting rid of him without losing his immortal soul, as well as the woman who, thanks to an experiment in time, discovers why her lover abandoned her. 
 
'Wyndham writes strongly and has a gift for bizarre plots' Guardian 
 
'One of the few authors whose compulsive readability is a compliment to the intelligence' Spectator 
 
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote short stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge, Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. John Wyndham died in March 1969.

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote short stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids, The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge, Consider Her Ways and Others, Web and Chocky. John Wyndham died in March 1969.

The six stories in this second collecton of John Wyndham's short tales continue his exploration of the science fiction staple - what if? 
 
In the title story we are introduced to a world where all the men have been killed by a virus and women continue to survive in a strict caste system - bottom of the heap are the mothers. In others we meet the man who accidentally summons a devil and then has to find a way of getting rid of him without losing his immortal soul, as well as the woman who, thanks to an experiment in time, discovers why her lover abandoned her.

H G Wells

Yevgeni Zamyatin

Franz Kafka

Aldous Huxley

George Orwell

John Wyndham

Robert Glenister

Anton Lesser

Don Warrington

Brigit Forsyth

William Gaunt

Jonathan Coy

Justin Salinger

Pippa Nixon

Matthew Beard

Full Cast

Christopher Eccleston

Mike Gwylim

The Time Machine, We, The Trial, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Chrysalids

Full-cast dramatisations of six masterpieces from the founding fathers of dystopian fiction 
 
Dark and disturbing, provocative and prescient, dystopian literature has long captured our imagination with its nightmarish visions of forbidding future worlds. Included here are six classic novels of time-travel, totalitarianism and terror, written by some of the masters of speculative fiction and adapted for radio with all-star casts. 
 
The Time Machine by HG Wells - A Victorian inventor takes a fateful journey into the far future, where mankind has diverged into two species - the Eloi and the Morlocks. Robert Glenister and William Gaunt star in this pioneering science fiction adventure. 
 
We by Evgeny Zamyatin - In a post-revolutionary future, OneState is ruled according to the principles of rationality. The penalty for dissent is death. But when engineer D-503 meets the beautiful 1-330, he begins to question everything... Starring Anton Lesser, Don Warrington and Brigit Forsyth. 
 
The Trial by Franz Kafka - Josef K is an ordinary man who lives a quiet life. Then, one morning, he is awoken by two men and arrested - but what is his crime? Mike Gwylim stars in this gripping dramatisation by Hanif Kureishi. 
 
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - It's 2116 and Helmholtz Watson and Bernard Marx are token rebels in a society where eugenics, promiscuity and happiness are gently enforced. Into this world comes an outsider, John, who will show the duo what rebellion really means... Starring Justin Salinger, John Coy and Milton Lopes. 
 
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to suit the Party. When he finds love with Julia, he awakens to new possibilities - but free thinking is forbidden, and Big Brother is always watching... Christopher Eccleston and Pippa Nixon star in Orwell's chilling tale. 
 
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by genetic mutation, the God-respecting people of Waknuk regard deviation as the work of the Devil. Young David and his friends can communicate by telepathy: but as Mutants, they must hide their powers or face the consequences of discovery... Starring Matthew Beard, Verity-May Henry and Emma Cunniffe. 
 
First published 1899 (The Time Machine), 1921 (We), 1925 (The Trial), 1932 (Brave New World), 1949 (Nineteen Eighty-Four), 1955 (The Chrysalids) 
 
(P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. © 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Classic Dystopias: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

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