About George Hendrick

George Hendrick is Professor Emeritus of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Previously he held the Chair of American Studies at J. W. Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main. He is the editor and author of many books on Thoreau, Katherine Anne Porter, Sandburg, and on African American topics. His late wife, Willene was the coauthor of many of these books.

Willene Hendrick (1928–2010) was a nurse for thirty-eight years. Upon her retirement from Planned Parenthood, she began a second career as a writer and editor. With her husband, she published such works as Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad and Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg.