author
Philip Wylie
1902–1971
A sharp, wide-ranging American writer, he moved easily from science fiction and adventure stories to provocative social criticism. Best known for novels like Gladiator and When Worlds Collide, he also became famous for his blunt, argumentative nonfiction.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1902, Philip Wylie grew into one of the most versatile popular writers of the mid-20th century. He wrote novels, short stories, essays, screenplays, and newspaper columns, building a reputation for restless curiosity and a style that could be entertaining one moment and fiercely critical the next.
His fiction helped shape early science fiction and disaster storytelling. Gladiator imagined a man with extraordinary powers decades before superheroes became a fixture of popular culture, and When Worlds Collide, written with Edwin Balmer, became one of his best-known works. Alongside fiction, he wrote nonfiction that took aim at American habits, fears, and social myths, especially in Generation of Vipers.
Wylie's interests were unusually broad: science, ecology, nuclear danger, Florida life, and the moral direction of modern society all found their way into his work. He died in Miami in 1971, leaving behind a body of writing that still feels energetic, combative, and hard to pin down in just one genre.