Donald Henderson (writer)

Donald Landels Henderson (28 April 1905 – 18 April 1947) was an English writer.

As a young man Henderson spent a period in a stockbrokers' office, and then became an actor. Later he joined the staff of the BBC.

From early youth he had written novels and plays under various pseudonyms. He first used his own name on the 1943 psychological thriller Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper,[1] which got considerable critical attention in wartime Britain. In 1946, it was dramatised for the stage under the same title with a cast headed by Anthony Hawtery and Jean Forbes-Robertson. In 1948, film actor Gene Raymond obtained the screen rights to it, according to the New York Daily News. In 1950, Anthony Hawtrey and Vida Hope starred in teleplay of the novel on British television . In the immediate aftermath of World War II Henderson published a second novel in the same genre, the 1946 Goodbye to Murder.[2]

He was born in London, the only son of Donald Douglas Henderson (1873-1931), an engineer, and Helen Mary Henderson, nee Scott, (1882-1959).

Henderson's career was cut short when he contracted lung cancer and died in Chelsea, London. His wife was the former Rosemary Austen, whom he had married in 1942.