Jack Finney

Jack Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 2, 1911. Although his birth name was John Finney, he was renamed Walter Braden Finney at age three in honor of his father after his death. He graduated from Knox College in 1934 and began work at an advertising agency in New York City. While working there, Finney published his first article, “Someone Who Knows Told Me…”, in the December 1943 issue of Cosmopolitan. This article, published during the height of the United States’s involvement in World War II, discouraged American citizens from making careless remarks about the war efforts. Finney’s experience living as a young adult during World War II would be influential on many of his works, including “The Third Level.” In 1946, he published his first short story, “The Widow’s Walk,” and published his first novel, 5 Against the House, in 1954. From the 1950s onwards, he was a prolific writer of science fiction, noir, and thrillers, and he became especially well-known for his 1955 novel The Body Snatchers. In 1987, he won the World Fantasy Convention’s World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Finney passed away from pneumonia and emphysema in 1995; he was survived by his wife, Marguerite, and their two children, Kenneth and Marguerite.