弗朗西斯·哈利·康普顿·克里克是哈利·克里克（Harry Crick、1887年至1948年）和安妮·伊丽莎白·克里克（Annie Elizabeth Crick、1879年至1955年）夫妇的第一个儿子。他在北安普顿附近的Weston Favell出生及成长，当时克里克的父亲和叔叔在此经营鞋厂。他的祖父沃尔特·德布里吉斯·克里克（Walter Drawbridge Crick、1857年至1903年）是一位业余博物学家，曾撰写一份有孔虫（单细胞原生生物）报告，并与查尔斯·达尔文互相讨论[3] 。
弗朗西斯·克里克在幼年时被科学所吸引。他在大约12岁时因为喜欢科学研究胜过宗教信仰[4]，所以他不想再进入教堂。他曾就读于北安普顿文法学校（Northampton Grammar School），14岁后则于伦敦米尔·希尔学校（英语：Mill Hill School）学习数学、物理与化学。他在1933年7月7日获得沃尔特·诺克斯化学奖。
Crick, Francis. What Mad Pursuit: a Personal View of Scientific Discovery. Basic Books reprint edition. 1990: 10. ISBN 0-465-09138-5. — "I remember telling my mother that I no longer wished to go to church".
Wade, Nicholas. Francis Crick, Co-Discoverer of DNA, Dies at 88. The New York Times. 30 July 2004 [21 July 2007]. （原始内容存档于2007-10-16）. Francis H. C. Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, the genetic blueprint for life, and the leading molecular biologist of his age, died on Wednesday night in a hospital in San Diego. He was 88. He died after a long battle with colon cancer, said Andrew Porterfield, a spokesman for the Salk Institute, where he worked.
Crick, Francis. What Mad Pursuit: a Personal View of Scientific Discovery. Basic Books reprint edition. 1990: 10. ISBN 0-465-09138-5. — Crick described himself as agnostic, with a "strong inclination towards atheism".
Page 30 of The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology by Horace Freeland Judson published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press (1996) ISBN 978-0-87969-478-4.
Cochran, W.; Crick, F. H.; Vand, V. The structure of synthetic polypeptides. I. The transform of atoms on a helix. Acta Crystallographica. 1952, 5 (5): 581–6. doi:10.1107/S0365110X52001635.
Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets by Professor Robert Olby, page 505
John Bankston, Francis Crick and James D. Watson; Francis Crick and James Watson: Pioneers in DNA Research (Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc., 2002) ISBN 978-1-58415-122-7.
Bill Bryson; A Short History of Nearly Everything (Broadway Books, 2003) ISBN 978-0-7679-0817-7.
Soraya De Chadarevian; Designs For Life: Molecular Biology After World War II, CUP 2002, 444 pp; ISBN 978-0-521-57078-7.
Roderick Braithwaite. ""'Strikingly Alive', The History of the Mill Hill School Foundation 1807-2007; published Phillimore & Co. ISBN 978-1-86077-330-3
S. Chomet (Ed.), "D.N.A. Genesis of a Discovery", 1994, Newman- Hemisphere Press, London
Dickerson, Richard E.; "Present at the Flood: How Structural Molecular Biology Came About", Sinauer, 2005; ISBN 978-0-87893-168-2.
Edward Edelson, "Francis Crick And James Watson: And the Building Blocks of Life"' Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-19-513971-6.
John Finch; 'A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor', Medical Research Council 2008, 381 pp, ISBN 978-1-84046-940-0.
Hager, Thomas; "Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling", Simon & Schuster 1995; ISBN 978-0-684-80909-0
Graeme Hunter; Light Is A Messenger, the life and science of William Lawrence Bragg (Oxford University Press, 2004) ISBN 978-0-19-852921-7.
Horace Freeland Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation. Makers of the Revolution in Biology; Penguin Books 1995, first published by Jonathan Cape, 1977; ISBN 978-0-14-017800-5.
Errol C. Friedberg; "Sydney Brenner: A Biography", pub. CSHL Press October 2010, ISBN 978-0-87969-947-5.
Torsten Krude (Ed.); DNA Changing Science and Society (ISBN 978-0-521-82378-4) CUP 2003. (The Darwin Lectures for 2003, including one by Sir Aaron Klug on Rosalind Franklin's involvement in the determination of the structure of DNA).
Robert Olby; The Path to The Double Helix: Discovery of DNA; first published in October 1974 by MacMillan, with foreword by Francis Crick; ISBN 978-0-486-68117-7; revised in 1994, with a 9-page postscript.
Robert Olby; Oxford National Dictionary article: ‘Crick, Francis Harry Compton (1916–2004)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, January 2008.
Robert Olby; "Francis Crick: Hunter of Life's Secrets", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, ISBN 978-0-87969-798-3, published on 25 August 2009
Matt Ridley; Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code (Eminent Lives) first published in June 2006 in the US and then in the UK September 2006, by HarperCollins Publishers; 192 pp, ISBN 978-0-06-082333-7.
Anne Sayre. 1975. Rosalind Franklin and DNA. New York: W.W. Norton and Company. ISBN 978-0-393-32044-2.
James D. Watson; The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, Atheneum, 1980, ISBN 978-0-689-70602-8 (first published in 1968) is a very readable firsthand account of the research by Crick and Watson. The book also formed the basis of the award winning television dramatization Life Story by BBC Horizon (also broadcast as Race for the Double Helix).
James D. Watson; The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA; The Norton Critical Edition, which was published in 1980, edited by Gunther S. Stent: ISBN 978-0-393-01245-3.
James D. Watson; "Avoid boring people and other lessons from a life in science" New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-41284-4, 366pp.
Maurice Wilkins; The Third Man of the Double Helix: The Autobiography of Maurice WilkinsISBN 978-0-19-860665-9.
Francis Crick Archive — Papers by Francis Crick are available for study at the Wellcome Library’s Archives and Manuscripts department. These papers include those dealing with Crick’s career after he moved to the Salk Institute in San Diego. The Crick papers
The Quest for Consciousness （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） – The Quest for Consciousness – 65 minute audio program — a conversation on Consciousness with neurobiologist Francis Crick of the Salk Institute and neurobiologist Christof Koch from Caltech.
Listen （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） to Francis Crick and James Watson talking on the BBC in 1962, 1972, and 1974.
