Editing Alexander Key

{{short description|American novelist (1904–1979)}}
{{infobox writer
|name=Alexander Key
|birth_name=Alexander Hill Key
|birth_date={{birth date|1904|9|21}}
|birth_place=LaPlatte, [[Maryland]], U.S.
|death_date={{death date and age|1979|7|25|1904|9|21}}
|occupation=Writer
|alma_mater=[[School of the Art Institute]]
|genres={{flatlist|
*[[Science fiction]]
*[[children's literature]]
}}
}}
'''Alexander Hill Key''' (September 21, 1904&nbsp;&ndash; July 25, 1979) was an American [[science fiction]] writer who primarily wrote [[children's literature]].<ref name="merrimous">{{Cite web |url=http://www.utahsf.org/key/faq.html |title=Alexander Key – FAQ |access-date=2007-08-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309182208/http://www.utahsf.org/key/faq.html |archive-date=2016-03-09 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>

==Early life==
Alexander Key was born in 1904 in LaPlatte, Maryland to Alexander Hill and Charlotte (Ryder) Key. The family soon moved to Florida, where he spent the next six years of his life. His father owned a sawmill and cotton gin, both of which were burned by [[The_Night_Riders|night riders]] shortly before his father's death when Key was about six. Between the time of his father's death and his mother's death in an accident when he was 15, Key attended at least 14 different schools, including a military school in Georgia.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Roach |first=Ron R. |date=Fall 2013 |title=Witch Mountains and Forgotten Doors: Place, Apocalypse, and Wilderness in the Works of Appalachian Writer Alexander Key |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43489131 |journal=Appalachian Journal |volume=41 |issue=1/2 |pages=126–147 |JSTOR=43489131 }}</ref>

After his mother's death, Key was raised by various relatives for the rest of his childhood.<ref>{{Cite web |title=StackPath |url=https://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/public_html/html/research/findaids/key.htm |access-date=2022-01-16 |website=www.lib.usm.edu }}</ref>

At 18, Key enrolled in the [[School of the Art Institute]] in Chicago, Illinois, which he attended between 1921 and 1923.<ref name="merrimous"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://fremontlibraries.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/13-facts-about-alexander-key/|title=13 Facts About Alexander Key|publisher=}}</ref>

==Literary work==
{{Unreferenced section|date=March 2022}}
Key's novel ''[[Escape to Witch Mountain]]'' was made into a popular live-action film by Disney in 1975, with several sequels in the following years. His novel ''[[The Incredible Tide]]'' became an [[anime]] series called ''[[Future Boy Conan]]'' in 1978.

Key is known for his portrayals of alien but human-looking people who have tremendously strong [[psychic]]/[[psionic]] abilities, a close communion with nature, and who can telepathically speak with animals. In his nonfiction book ''The Strange White Doves'', he professed his belief that animals are conscious, thinking, feeling, perceiving, independent, and self-aware intelligent beings, and that they have subtle ways of communicating, perhaps via [[empathy]] or [[telepathy]]. The protagonists of Key's books are often ostracized, feared, or persecuted because of their astonishing abilities or extraterrestrial origins, and Key uses this as a clear metaphor for racism and other prejudice.

In several of his novels (most notably ''The Case of the Vanishing Boy''), Key portrays some sort of communal withdrawal from society by a group of like-minded individuals. Key sometimes depicted government-sponsored [[social services]] for children as inefficient or even counterproductive in its efforts: in ''The Forgotten Door'', social services is presented as a clearly undesirable alternative for the protagonist Little Jon, and, in ''Escape to Witch Mountain'', Tony and Tia actively flee the system. In both cases, however, it is for a very logical reason: the characters are "not from around here". All they want to do is go home and, happily, a few of us locals have the decency to help them do so.

The plot of Key's ''The Magic Meadow'' is even more poignant for any reader who has ever been bedridden in a hospital. Its ending in particular is phenomenally optimistic. That was another Alexander Key theme: that good and decent people deserve to escape ''to'' a place worthy of them.

== Selected works ==

=== As illustrator ===
* ''In the Light of Myth: Selections from the World's Myths'', compiled and interpreted by Rannie B. Baker (1925) {{OCLC|593232}}
* ''Real Legends of New England'', G. Waldo Browne (1930) {{OCLC|1710918}}
* ''The Book of Dragons'', selected and edited by O. Muiriel Fuller (1931) {{OCLC|2391529}}
* ''Suwannee River: Strange Green Land'', Cecile Hulse Matschat (1938) {{OCLC|484454}}

=== As writer ===
* ''The Red Eagle: A Tale for Young Aviators'' (1930) {{OCLC|3442600}}
*''Liberty or Death'' (1936)
*''With Daniel Boone on the Caroliny Trail'' (1941)
*''The Wrath and the Wind'' (1949)
*''Island Light'' (1950)
*''Sprockets: A Little Robot'' (1963)
*''Rivets and Sprockets'' (1964)
*''The Forgotten Door'' (1965) {{OCLC|0590403982}}
*''Bolts: a Robot Dog'' (1966)
*''Mystery of the Sassafras Chair'' (1968)
*''[[Escape to Witch Mountain]]'' (1968) {{OCLC|436504}}
*''The Golden Enemy'' (1969)
*''[[The Incredible Tide]]'' (1970)
*''Flight to the Lonesome Place'' (1971)
*''The Strange White Doves'' (1972)
*''The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer'' (1973)
*''The Magic Meadow'' (1975)
*''Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere'' (1976)
*''The Sword of Aradel'' (1977)
* ''[[Return from Witch Mountain]]'' (1978) – novelization of the [[Return from Witch Mountain|1978 film]]. {{OCLC|3542494}} 
*''The Case of the Vanishing Boy'' (1979)

==References ==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{cite web|url=http://www.powernet.net/~mbaring/earthlibrary.htm |title=The Earth Library |accessdate=2005-04-03 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050218020028/http://www.powernet.net/~mbaring/earthlibrary.htm |archivedate=2005-02-18 }}  Read some of Mr. Key's out-of-print books online.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130802150204/http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu/2002/November2002/1102focus.html "Gone But Not Forgotten: Alexander Key"]{{snd}}''The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books'', University of Illinois, November 2002
* [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215414/ ''The Forgotten Door''], a three-episode television series based on Key's novel of the same name, distributed by [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] and broadcast in 1966
* [http://wonderlandofbooks.blogspot.it/2008/09/alexander-key-forgotten-author.html Alexander Key: A Forgotten Author?]
* {{isfdb name|1707|name=Alexander Key}}
* {{Find a Grave|50684418|Alexander Key}}

{{Witch Mountain (franchise)}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Key, Alexander}}
[[Category:1904 births]]
[[Category:1979 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American children's writers]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American science fiction writers]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:People from La Plata, Maryland]]
[[Category:Writers from Jacksonville, Florida]]
[[Category:Novelists from Maryland]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Novelists from Florida]]