The Day of the Triffids

The influential masterpiece of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant—and neglected—science fiction and horror writers, whom Stephen King called “the best writer of science fiction that England has ever produced.” “[Wyndham] avoids easy allegories and instead questions the relative values of the civilization that has been lost, the literally blind terror of humanity in the face of dominant nature. Frightening and powerful, Wyndham’s vision remains an important allegory and a gripping story.”—The Guardian

What if a meteor shower left most of the world blind—and humanity at the mercy of mysterious carnivorous plants?

Bill Masen undergoes eye surgery and awakes the next morning in his hospital bed to find civilization collapsing. Wandering the city, he quickly realizes that surviving in this strange new world requires evading strangers and the seven-foot-tall plants known as triffids—plants that can walk and can kill a man with one quick lash of their poisonous stingers.

John Wyndham wrote several short stories before World War II under various names, including Lucas Parkes, John Harris, and Lucas Beynon. It was not until after the war that he began to focus on the themes of disaster, invasion, and….