The People
Zenna Henderson is best remembered for her stories of the People which appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from the early 50s to the middle 70s. The People escaped the destruction of their home planet and crashed on Earth in the Southwest just before the turn of the century. Fully human in appearance, they possessed many extraordinary powers. Henderson's People stories tell of their struggles to fit in and to live their lives as ordinary people, unmolested by fearful and ignorant neighbors. The People are "us at our best, as we hope to be, and where (with work and with luck) we may be in some future."
Ingathering contains all seventeen of the People stories, including one, "Michal Without," which has never before been published.
Publishers Weekly has this to say:
"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 series, 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."
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Zenna Henderson
Like so many of her characters, Zenna Henderson was a teacher. She worked in various schools through her life, generally as a first-grade teacher, though at one time or another she taught other elementary grades and some high school.
Again, like her characters, she was born and raised in Arizona and lived most of her life there, though she taught for a year in Connecticut and for two years in France. In Arizona, she taught at a Japanese relocation camp during World War II, and, much later, at Fort Huachuca. She taught at a semi-ghost mining town "where the kids brought jars of water to school when the water pressure was too low to make it up to the hill-top school house, and they had to unlock the Little Houses left over from a much earlier era."
Her first story of the People, "Ararat," was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in October 1952. It was her second published science fiction story and was destined to begin a series of stories which would span her writing career.
Zenna Henderson's stories of the People are among the most-loved and remembered series in Science Fiction.
30 bound page proofs were produced and sent to library, etc. review journals (with an official publication date of June 1, 1995). Extra copies were sold at cost at $30.
Publication rights were also sold to the Science Fiction Book Club. The book was presented as a Featured Alternate. Advertising first appeared in Things to Come, Special Collector's Issue, Summer 1995. on page 6. $11.98, 077206.
The price was originally $24.95 with a publication date of April 1995.
How to recognize the Book Club edition:
| NESFA Press | Science Fiction Book Club | |
| Height | 8 7/8" | 8 1/2" |
| Binding | brown or tan cloth | brown pressed paper with white spine |
| Back | no number | 07720 in small white box |
| NESFA Press ad | at back of book | none |
| Price on inside front dustjacket flap | yes | no |
| "Printed in United States of America" at bottom of copyright page |
no | yes |