Zenna Henderson - can anyone tell me about her?

[carolinec]

I recently came across a very well read book I had back in the 60s - Zenna Henderson "The Anything Box". I've not heard of this writer before or since, and I wonder if any of you have heard of her?

The short stories in the book are what I'd call "beautiful" horror stories - both very moving, and quite terrifying. The title story involves a lonely young child who has a box which seems to make her wishes come true and keeps her company - until a teacher takes it away from her ...

Then, there's the story Hush! about a child who creates an imaginary noise-eating monster, which comes to life - and the child has a cough ...

Another story I remember vividly is one where a family go out for a picnic on a grassy hillside. The child of the family realises the hills are alive (no, not with the sound of music!), but, of course, the grown-ups won't believe her ...

You get the gist of the stories - they're all about childish imaginings coming true, and, as a kid, I loved them. Anybody else here come across her work at all? Can you tell me anything about her?
Thanks!

[Calenture]

carolinec said:

I recently came across a very well read book I had back in the 60s - Zenna Henderson "The Anything Box". I've not heard of this writer before or since, and I wonder if any of you have heard of her?

I've got this one. Michael Moorcock wasn't kind about this book in New Worlds, I remember; but then what does he know.

David Wingrove, before he became a big SF writer, wrote his Science Fiction Source Book, which has this to say about Henderson.


"American writer (1917 - 83) whose two novels about 'The People' are really short story collections, loosely joined together. A wistful fantasy vein inhabits her sf, and most of her stories are about more-than-human aliens living amongst us, humanoids of extraterrestrial origin who have been with us since the 1890s. She has been accused of sentimentalism, but her deep humanistic streak makes her highly readable."

The two novels are:

Pilgrimage: The Book of the People (1961)

The People: No Different Flesh (1966)

The Zenna Henderson Homepage

Zenna Henderson Wikipedia Page

Amazon editorial reviews for Ingathering: The Complete People Stories (presently said to be not available):

From Publishers Weekly:
The People, the best-known creations of the late SF writer Henderson, are humanoid refugees who have landed in 19th-century America after the destruction of their own planet. Their abilities?telepathy, levitation and other apparently magic talents?help them survive, yet mark them as different. This useful and enjoyable collection reprints all of the People stories, including four that didn't appear in Henderson's two People books (Pilgrimage: The Book of The People; The People: No Different Flesh) and one that is new to print. One of the few female writers during SF's earlier years, Henderson provides a warm, emotional voice, prefeminist yet independent, examining issues of identity, loneliness, nostalgia and caring. The People stories, written between 1952 and 1975, also present a strong regional sensibility, depicting a rural Southwest as alien and charming as the People's own planet. Some may find these stories too sentimental, but their emotional integrity and deeply moral core will?as Priscilla Olson's too-short introduction points out?please many.

Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

Henderson's People stories reached the peak of their popularity when they inspired the 1972 TV movie The People, starring William Shatner. First composed in the 1950s and 1960s, the stories, including the previously unpublished "Michal Without," are here collected for the first time. For the uninitiated, the People are members of a race of humanlike, psychically gifted extraterrestrials who become stranded on Earth after their starship crashes during a space migration they refer to as the Crossing. Bound together by a series of vignettes about one human's encounter with the People, the 28 stories chronicle the People's adventures from the crash to their settlement in rural Arizona and their problems using their levitational and mind-reading skills in human society while seeking a new planet to replace the home they left behind. These tales may seem mawkish and dated by today's more sophisticated sf standards, yet they retain their raw emotional power thanks to Henderson's masterfully lucid prose. They will always occupy an important place in sf history for their treatment of parapsychological themes.

Carl Hays

Midwest Book Review:

Henderson produced fine stories of the People in the early 50s to the 70s: stories gathered in several collections including Pilgrimage and The People: No Different Flesh. Enjoy the sum of these two collections, three tales which appeared in other books, one from a magazine and one new to this volume, which rounds out the entire People series and provides the first unbroken saga.

Amazon - Ingathering

[carolinec]

Oooo, cheers, Rog. I'll have to go and check out those links. From reading "The Anything Box", I wouldn't have classed her work as SF (but then that's the only one I've read) - but then it's certainly not what you might call "traditional" horror either. Certainly no gory bits; just a few scares. I found the stories quite reminiscent of "The Twilight Zone" really - another favourite of mine!