In 2010
Psychic Book Club Publishing
was inspired into existence by a unique
and historic publishing house named
'Psychic Book Club'
The original Psychic Book Club
was first incorporated in London
on January 15th 1938
and began trading in March of that year.
- either a reprinted classic or a brand new title.
Fleet Street journalist Frederick Hannen Swaffer, Spiritualism’s own Arthur Conan Doyle,
As the popularity of these monthly editions continued to grow,
their diversity and authorship expanded to include works by
Harry Edwards, William T. Stead, Eileen J Garrett, Anthony Borgia,
Winifred Graham and White Eagle’s Medium, Grace Cooke...
As global subscriptions increased, Psychic Book Club’s readership spread
The fires of the London Blitz
hit the publishing industry hard.
The new ‘War Economy Standard’ in book production meant that fewer books were produced.
Although content was unaffected, pages were thinner, hardbacks were reduced to paperbacks
and text on the page often ran from edge to edge.
Paper rationing finally came to an end in 1949
although some restrictions remained,
but by 1950 paper was again in great supply.
including: Arthur Ford, Horace Leaf, Alfred Russel Wallace,
Sir William Barrett - even Maurice Barbanell himself rejoined the authorship.
Indeed, 1950 to 1957 were prolific years for Psychic Book Club
and many of those editions can still be found for sale today.
For almost twenty years,
from 1938 to 1957,
Psychic Book Club successfully produced
more than a 150 different titles,
The final publication to carry the Psychic Book Club name came by accident in 1960.
Another of Barbanell’s publishing ventures, Spiritualist Press,
published William Naylor’s ‘Silver Birch Anthology’.
It was a direct copy of an earlier edition
and the name Psychic Book Club is clearly seen on the title page.