His parents, Charles Wright and Nora (Willis) Clarke, were farmers. Clarke was educated at Huish's Grammar School in Taunton, Somerset. He first began reading science fiction at the age of 12, when he first discovered the pulp magazine
Amazing Stories. It soon became his principal passion. "During my lunch hour away from school I used to haunt the local Woolworth's in search of my fix," he told
The New York Times Book Review, "which cost threepence a shot, roughly a quarter today."
As a teenager, Clarke began writing his own stories for a school magazine. When poverty forced him to drop out of school in 1936, he moved to London to work as a civil servant auditor for the British government. He kept up his interest in outer space by joining the British Interplanetary Society, an association of sci-fi hobbyists. He wrote articles on space exploration for the Society journal and got to know other science fiction writers and editors. He would later use these contacts to secure the publication of his first stories.
When World War II broke out, Clarke joined the Royal Air Force (RAF), where he worked as a radar instructor and earned the rank of flight-lieutenant.
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