Philip Wylie (1902-1971) was a prolific writer whose work spanned a range of genres from men's adventure and detective stories to science fiction and social criticism. Several of his novels, including
When Worlds Collide,
Night Unto Night, and
Los Angeles: A. D. 2017, as well asthe Crunch & Des stories, were adapted as movies and television shows, and his novel
Gladiatoris considered one of the inspirations for the iconic character Superman.
Wylie was also a commentator on American society. In 1942 he published
Generation of Vipers, a bestselling book of essays that attacked the complacencies of the American way of life. His novel
The Disappearancepresents a dystopia in which men and women vanish from the perception of the opposite sex, allowing Wylie to explore the issues of women's rights and homosexuality. Wylie recognized early the potentially catastrophic effects of pollution and climate change and wrote both fiction and nonfiction on those topics.
