Sir Terence David John Pratchett OBE was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for his 41 comic fantasy novels set on the Discworld, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990) which he wrote with Neil Gaiman.

Pratchett was born on 28 April 1948 in Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, England, the only child of David (1921–2006), a mechanic, and Eileen Pratchett (1922–2010), a secretary, of Hay-on-Wye. His maternal grandparents came from Ireland. Pratchett attended Holtspur School, where he was bullied for his speech impediments. He was bothered by the head teacher, who, he said, thought "he could tell how successful you were going to be in later life by how well you could read or write at the age of six".

Pratchett married Lyn Purves at the Congregational Church, Gerrards Cross, on 5 October 1968. They moved to Rowberrow, Somerset, in 1970. Their daughter Rhianna Pratchett, also a writer, was born there in 1976. In 1993, the family moved to Broad Chalke, a village west of Salisbury, Wiltshire.