Walter Braden “Jack” Finney was born in 1911 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was given the name John at birth but was renamed Walter Braden in honor of his father who died when he was three years old. He attended college in Galesburg, Illinois, which became the setting of his short story collection I Love Galesburg in the Springtime (1963). He eventually moved to New York City.

Finney married Marguerite Guest, with whom he had two children. Finney worked for a New York City advertising agency during World War II, an experience that he mined for several of his novels, including Good Neighbor Sam and Time and Again. It was also during this time that he began his serious writing career, with his first piece, “Someone Who Knows Told Me…,” published in 1943. In the early 1950s, he and his family moved to Mill Valley, California, where many of his stories are set. He received the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement in 1987, and he died in California in November 1995 at age 84.

Many of Finney’s short stories and novels had commercial and critical success. His first novel, 5 Against the House, was published in 1954 and made into a movie in 1955.