About the

Author
Walter Braden "Jack"
Finney (born John Finney;
October 2, 1911 – November
14, 1995) was an American
writer. His best-known works
are science fiction and thrillers,
including The Body Snatchers
and Time and Again. The
former was the basis for the
1956 film
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
and its remakes.
Finney was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
and given the name John Finney. After his
father died when Finney was three years old,
he was renamed Walter Braden Finney in

Personal Life
honor of his father, but continued to be
known as "Jack". He attended Knox College
in Galesburg, Illinois, graduating in 1934. He
married Marguerite Guest, and they had two
children, Kenneth and Marguerite. After
living in New York City and working for an
advertising agency there, he moved with his
family to California in the early 1950s. He
lived in Mill Valley, California, and died of
pneumonia and emphysema in
Greenbrae, California, at the age of 84.
Finney's first article, "Someone Who Knows Told Me
…", published in the December 1943 issue of
Cosmopolitan, reflects the message of the
Office of War Information's (OWI) "Loose Lips Sink
Ships" campaign of World War II. As an advertising
copywriter, Finney was doing his part, driving home
the point that careless remarks by otherwise patriotic
citizens can aid enemy agents, resulting in the death
of US servicemen.

His story "The Widow's Walk" won a contest sponsored by

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1946.[1] His first novel, 5
Against the House, was published in 1954. It was made into
a movie the following year.
Finney's novel The Body Snatchers (1955) was the basis for
the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and its
remakes).
Another novel, Assault on a Queen (1959), became the film
Assault on a Queen with Frank Sinatra as the leader of a
Finney's greatest success came with his science fiction
novel Time and Again (1970). It involves time travel to
the past, a theme he had experimented with previously
In 1995, twenty-five years after Time and
in short stories. The novel is notable for Finney's vivid
Again, Finney published a sequel called
and detailed picture of life in the city at that time and
From Time to Time featuring the further
for the art and photographs supposedly made by
adventures of Morley, this time
Morley during his experiences, which are reproduced
centering on Manhattan in 1912. Finney
in the pages of the novel.
died at the age of 84 not long after
finishing the book.

In 1987, Finney was given the World Fantasy Award
for Life Achievement at the
World Fantasy Convention, held in
Nashville, Tennessee.[2]
Finney's story "Such Interesting Neighbors"
(Collier's, 6 January 1951) was the basis for the
second episode of Science Fiction Theatre, entitled
"Time Is Just a Place".
The Third Level, Knox College's science
fiction and fantasy publication, is named
for Finney's short story "The Third
Level", published in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Ficti
on
in October 1952.