Notes
First published by Farrar, Straus and Young in 1953.

Publisher's Blurb
All alone – an idiot boy, a runaway girl, a severely retarded baby and twin girls with a vocabulary of two words between them. Yet once they are mysteriously drawn together this collection of misfits becomes something very, very different from the rest of humanity. Add to the group an embittered orphan and it acquires limitless potential — both for good and for evil.

Hailed on first publication as daring and original, this intensely written and moving novel is an extraordinary vision of mankind’s next step.

Born in America in 1918, THEODORE STURGEON was one of science fiction’s most widely respected writers. He concentrated largely on psychological themes, publishing a number of short story collections and novels including The Dreaming Jewels and Venus Plus X. He died in 1985.