The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic novel written in 1951 by the
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
science fiction author John Wyndham. Although Wyndham had already published other novels, this was the first published under the John Wyndham pen-name. It established him as an important writer, and remains his best known novel.
The protagonist is Bill Masen, an Englishman who has made his living working with "
TriffidThe triffid is a highly venomous fictional plant species, the titular antagonist from John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids...
s," plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour: they are able to move about on their three "legs", appear to communicate with each other and possess a deadly
whipThe word whip describes two basic types of tools:A long stick-like device, usually slightly flexible, with a small bit of leather or cord, called a "popper", on the end. Depending on length and flexibility, this type is often called a riding whip, riding crop or "bat"...
-like poisonous sting that enables them to kill and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims. The book implies they were bioengineered in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and then accidentally released into the wild when a plane carrying their seeds is shot down.
The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic novel written in 1951 by the
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
science fiction author John Wyndham. Although Wyndham had already published other novels, this was the first published under the John Wyndham pen-name. It established him as an important writer, and remains his best known novel.
Plot summary
The protagonist is Bill Masen, an Englishman who has made his living working with "
TriffidThe triffid is a highly venomous fictional plant species, the titular antagonist from John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids...
s," plants capable of aggressive and seemingly intelligent behaviour: they are able to move about on their three "legs", appear to communicate with each other and possess a deadly
whipThe word whip describes two basic types of tools:A long stick-like device, usually slightly flexible, with a small bit of leather or cord, called a "popper", on the end. Depending on length and flexibility, this type is often called a riding whip, riding crop or "bat"...
-like poisonous sting that enables them to kill and feed on the rotting carcasses of their victims. The book implies they were bioengineered in the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and then accidentally released into the wild when a plane carrying their seeds is shot down. Triffids begin sprouting all over the world, and their extracts prove to be superior to existing vegetable oils. The result is worldwide cultivation of Triffids.
The narrative begins with Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with droplets of triffid venom in a lab accident. During his convalescence he is told of the unexpected and beautiful green
meteor showerA meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speed on parallel trajectories. Most are smaller than a...
that the entire world is watching. He awakes the next morning to a silent hospital and learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it completely blind. After unbandaging his eyes, he wanders through a largely sightless
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, watching civilization collapsing around him. Masen meets a sighted woman, novelist Josella Playton. She and Masen begin to fall in love and decide to leave London.
After being lured by a single light in an otherwise darkened city, Bill and Josella discover and join a group of sighted survivors at a London university led by a man named Beadley, who are planning to establish a colony in the countryside. Beadley wishes to take only sighted men who will take several wives to rapidly rebuild the human population. The polygamous principles of this scheme appall one of the other leaders of the group, the religious Miss Durrant. Before this schism can be dealt with a man called Wilfred Coker takes it upon himself to save as many of the blind as possible. He stages a mock fire at the university and during the ensuing chaos kidnaps a number of sighted individuals including Bill and Josella. Each is chained to a squad of blind people and forced to lead them around London, collecting rapidly diminishing food and supplies. Bill and his group finds themselves beset by escaped triffids and an aggressive rival gang of scavengers led by a ruthless red-haired man.
Masen nevertheless sticks with his group until the people in his charge all begin dying of some unknown disease. He leaves and attempts to find Josella, but his only lead is an address left behind by the now-departed members of Beadley's group. Thrown together with a repentant Coker, he drives to the place, a country estate named Tynsham in
WiltshireWiltshire is a ceremonial county in the south west of England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers 3,485 km²...
, but neither Beadley nor Josella are there; Durrant has taken charge and organised the community along "Christian" lines. Masen and Coker fruitlessly search for Beadley and/or Joanna for several days, before Bill remembers a chance comment Josella made about a country home in
SussexSussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
. He sets off in search of it, while Coker returns to Tynsham.
Bill is joined by a young sighted girl named Susan; they succeed in locating Josella, who is indeed at the Sussex house. Bill and Josella consider themselves to be married, and see Susan as their daughter. They attempt to make the Sussex farm into a self-sufficient colony, but with only marginal success, as the triffids grow ever more numerous, crowding in and surrounding their small island of civilization. Years pass, during which it becomes steadily harder to keep out the encroaching plants.
One day a
helicopterA helicopter is an aircraft that is lifted and propelled by one or more horizontal rotors, each rotor consisting of two or more rotor blades. Helicopters are classified as rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft to distinguish them from fixed-wing aircraft because the helicopter achieves lift with the...
pilot representative of Beadley's faction lands at the farm and reports that the group has established a successful colony on the
Isle of WightThe Isle of Wight is an English island and a county, located 3-5 miles from the south coast of the mainland, in the English Channel. It is separated from mainland England by the Solent and is situated south of the county of Hampshire...
(and that Coker survived to join them). Despite their ongoing struggles, the Masens are reluctant to leave their home, but their hand is forced by the arrival the next day of a squad of soldiers who represent a despotic new government which is setting up feudal enclaves across the country. Masen recognizes the leader, Torrence, as the redheaded man from London. Torrence announces his intention to place many more blind survivors under the Masens' care and to move Susan to another enclave. After feigning general agreement, the Masens disable the soldiers' vehicle and flee during the night. They join the Isle of Wight colony, and settle down to the long struggle ahead, determined to find a way to destroy the triffids and reclaim Earth for humanity.
Publication history
In the United States, the 1951 copyright was attained by Doubleday & Company, Inc. A 1951 condensed version of the book also appeared in Colliers Magazine.
An unabridged paperback edition was published in the late 1960s in arrangement with Doubleday by
Fawcett PublicationsFawcett Publications was an American publishing company founded in 1919 in Robbinsdale, Minnesota by Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett . At the age of 16, Fawcett ran away from home to join the Army, and the Spanish-American War took him to the Philippines. Back in Minnesota, he became a...
World Library, under its Crest Book imprint.
Influences
- Wyndham frequently acknowledged the influence of H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, and social commentary....
' The War of the WorldsThe War of the Worlds is an 1898 science fiction novel written by H. G. Wells.The War of the Worlds may also refer to:-Literature:...
on The Day of the Triffids.
- In regards to the Triffids' creation, some editions of the novel make brief mention of the theories of the would-be Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Ukrainian agronomist who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin...
; eventually thoroughly debunked, LysenkoismLysenkoism was a set of repressive political and social campaigns in science and agriculture by the powerful Stalinist director of the Soviet Lenin All-Union Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko and his followers, which began in the late 1920s and formally ended in...
at the time of the novel's creation was still being defended by some prominent international communists.
Themes
The novel contains many themes which are common in Wyndham's work: a depiction of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
as an opaque, inscrutable menace, a central problem made worse by human greed and bickering, and a firm determination on the part of the author to not explicitly detail the origin of the threat faced by the protagonists.
Critical reception
The Day of the Triffids was cited by
Karl Edward WagnerKarl Edward Wagner was an American writer, editor and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. His disillusionment with the medical profession can be seen in the stories "The Fourth Seal" and "Into...
as one of the thirteen best science-fiction horror novels.
Arthur C. ClarkeSri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which also produced the film of the same name; and as a...
called it an "immortal story".
In his book
Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction, Brian Aldiss coined the term cosy catastrophe to describe the subgenre of post-war apocalyptic fiction in which society is destroyed save for a handful of survivors, who are able to enjoy a relatively comfortable existence. He specifically singled out
The Day of the Triffids as an example of this genre.
Allusions/references in other works
- The Triffids
The Triffids were an Australian rock band who achieved some international success in the 1980s. Formed in Perth in the late 1970s and disbanded in 1989, their best known songs are "Wide Open Road" and "Bury Me Deep in Love"...
were an AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n rock group in the 1980s.
- Triffids are referenced in the opening number of the stage/film musical
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
The Rocky Horror Picture ShowThe Rocky Horror Picture Show is a 1975 British musical comedy film that parodies science fiction and horror films. Still in limited release 34 years after its premiere, it has the longest-running theatrical release in film history. It gained notoriety as a midnight movie in 1977 when audiences...
: "I really got hot when I saw Janette ScottThora Janette Scott is an English actress. She was born in Morecambe, England. She is the daughter of actors Jimmy Scott and Thora Hird. She started her acting career as a child actress, known as Janette Scott, and became a popular leading lady. She wrote her autobiography at the age of 14...
fight a triffid that spits poison and kills." Janette Scott played the role of Karen Goodwin in the 1962 film adaptation.
- According to director Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle is a British filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later and Slumdog Millionaire...
, 28 Days Later28 Days Later is a 2002 British post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle. With a screenplay written by Alex Garland, the film stars Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Noah Huntley and Christopher Eccleston...
writer Alex Garland was inspired by the opening sequence to the book and film to write the film.
- The band Ash
Ash is an alternative rock band that formed in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland in 1992. The media originally pegged Ash's music as Britpop when the band first found mainstream success...
have a song titled "Day of the Triffids" as a b-side of "Kung Fu"
- TRIFFID is the name of the UK Hadley Centre's "dynamic vegetation" computer model of the terrestrial carbon cycle
The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth...
.
- Triffids are a plant-like enemy in Introversion's computer-game Darwinia
Darwinia may refer to:*Darwinia , a genus of Myrtaceae found only in Australia*Darwinia , a video game by Introversion Software*Darwinia , a novel by Robert Charles Wilson...
.
- The Fingus units in the Etherlords computer games closely resemble Triffids.
Film, TV, radio or theatrical adaptations
The novel was adapted to radio (readings) by the BBC as early as 1953.
BBC radio seriesThe Day of the Triffids was a 1957 and 1968 BBC adaptation of the science fiction novel by John Wyndham to radio.Cast and crew for the 6 episode 1957 version include:*Bill Masen : Patrick Barr.*Josella Playton : Monica Grey.*Directed : Giles Cooper....
followed in 1957 and 1968 (
Giles CooperGiles Stannus Cooper OBE was a prolific radio dramatist, writing over sixty scripts for BBC radio and later television. He was awarded an OBE for "services to broadcasting" in 1960...
). The same year it was adopted in Germany by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) Köln (Cologne), translator: Hein Bruehl (most recently re-broadcast as a four episode series on WDR5 in January 2008). Further BBC radio productions followed in 1971, 1973 and 1980. In 2001 writer
Lance DannLance Dann is an English sound artist, radio producer and writer working for international theatre and radio since 1994.-Life and work:...
adapted the series in two hour long episodes for the
BBC World ServiceThe BBC World Service is one of the most widely-recognised international broadcasters, currently broadcasting in 32 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. It is politically independent, non-profit and...
.
A film version was produced in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and released in
1962The year 1962 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Dr. No launches the James Bond film series, the second longest-running motion picture franchise of all time , running more than 40 years.-Top grossing films :...
.
In 1975,
Marvel ComicsMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
adapted the story in the magazine
Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction.
A
television versionThe Day of the Triffids is the title of two British TV science fiction series, based on the novel of the same name by English science fiction author John Wyndham. The BBC first adapted the story as a 1981 BBC television serial, ....
was produced by the BBC serial in 1981, repeated on
BBC FourBBC Four is a BBC television channel available to digital television viewers in the UK. The part successor to BBC Knowledge. BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002....
in 2006, 2007 and 2009. It starred
John DuttineJohn Arthur Duttine is an English actor noted for his roles on stage, films and television.His first big break came when he played John the Apostle in the 1975 television mini-series Jesus of Nazareth...
as Bill Masen.
In November 2008, it was announced that the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
is to film a new version of the story, written by "
ERER is an American medical drama series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 1994 to April 2009. It is set primarily in the emergency room of fictional County General Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment in...
" and "
Law & OrderLaw & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, which premiered on NBC on September 13, 1990. Created by Dick Wolf, the series is set in New York City, and follows the professional lives of several police officers and prosecutors who represent the public interest in...
" writer Patrick Harbinson. It will be screened in 2009. It will star
Dougray ScottStephen Dougray Scott is a Scottish actor.-Early life:The son of Elma, a nurse, and Alan Scott, an actor and salesperson, Scott attended Auchmuty High School...
as Bill Masen,
Joely RichardsonJoely Kim Richardson is an English actress, known for her role as Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck.-Early life:...
as Jo Playton,
Brian CoxBrian Denis Cox, CBE is a Scottish actor.-Early life:Cox was born in Dundee, Scotland, the youngest of five children. His mother, Mary Ann Guillerline , was a spinner who worked in the jute mills and suffered several nervous breakdowns during Cox's childhood. His father, Charles McArdle Campbell...
as Dennis Mason,
Vanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave CBE is an Oscar winning English actress of stage, film and television. She is a member of the Redgrave family, the world-renowned theatrical dynasty. A former Trotskyist and leading member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, She is also a social activist for human rights and has...
as Durrant,
Eddie IzzardEdward John "Eddie" Izzard is a two-time Emmy winning British stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy style is expressed in rambling, whimsical monologue and self-referential pantomime. Izzard's works include standup sets Definite Article, Dress to Kill and a starring role in the television...
as Torrence and
Jason PriestleyJason Bradford Priestley is a Canadian-American actor and film director. He is best known as the virtuous Brandon Walsh on the television series Beverly Hills, 90210, a role which catapulted him to recognition in the early 1990s....
as Coker.
External links