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Right Book Club

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The Right Book Club was an English book club founded in 1937 by Christina and William Foyle to counter the influential Left Book Club, established in 1936 by Victor Gollancz.[1]

Origins and character

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In May 1936, the Left Book Club had been established, and towards the end of 1936 a group of “neo-Tories” mooted the idea of a right-wing book club. Christina Foyle and her father William Foyle undertook to organize it, and the Club was launched at a luncheon at the Grosvenor House Hotel in April 1937, with John Baird, 1st Viscount Stonehaven, the recently-retired Chairman of the Conservative Party, presiding.[2]

The Right Book Club published one book every month, occasionally acting as the first publisher, but more often reprinting a recent new title from a mainstream publisher. Its members received a monthly magazine, and meetings with authors were also held. Membership was free, and members committed themselves to buying the monthly book,[2] which cost 2s 6d (half a crown). The first book appeared in June 1937.[3]

Arthur Bryant saw the Right Book Club as too radical, and responded by founding a similar monthly book club, the National Book Association, where he intended to be more moderate, and Stanley Baldwin agreed to be its President. However, in January 1939 Bryant's association published an expurgated translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf. Baldwin resigned in protest,[4] and this proved to be the last book the NBA published.[5]

By 1939, the Right Book Club claimed 20,000 subscribers, in comparison with some 50,000 members of the Left Book Club and 5,000 of the National Book Association. On 3 November 1939, the humorist A. G. Macdonell replied to an invitation from Christina Foyle to join the Club, "I had no idea that there were twenty thousand members of the Right in politics who could read."[6]

Whereas all volumes of the Left Book Club had the same appearance, a soft binding coloured solid orange, with plain black lettering, the Right Book Club described its books as "on good quality paper, with attractive STIFF binding and dignified coloured jacket". A commentator has said that this was a subtly English way to distance the two clubs: "The bindings are as stiff as a colonel's upper lip, not limp as a lounge lizard's handshake."[7]

In 2022, the critic Clive Bloom claimed that the Right Book Club was "thought up by Sir Oswald Mosley to promote fascism", without providing any source for this claim.[8]

Endorsements

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In the club's early days, three notable figures gave endorsements of it.[3]

In a posthumous message written shortly before his death, Austen Chamberlain, a former Conservative Party leader, commented "I welcome the appearance of the 'Right' Book Club. I have learned to trust the judgment of our people when the truth is made available to them."[3]

George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd, a Conservative on the "Diehard" wing of the party, said "I am glad to learn of the popularity and progress of the 'Right' Book Club. A great responsibility as well as an opportunity of doing work of last national importance lies before the Club."[3]

Lord Sempill, a well-known aviator, said "The work which you are doing deserves the support of all thinking men and women."[3]

Selection committee

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A committee aimed to select one book per month for publication and consisted of Anthony Ludovici, Norman Thwaites, Trevor Blakemore, Collinson Owen, and W. A. Foyle.[9][10]

Principal authors

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The writers of more than one book published by the Right Book Club were:[11]

Other authors included Clare Hollingworth, Hesketh Pearson, Ian Hay, Hugh Kingsmill, Edward Shanks, James Bridie, Arnold Lunn, Aubrey Jones, R. Welldon Finn, C. E. Vulliamy, Mairin Mitchell, and Harley Williams.[11]

Patrons

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The published list of the club’s patrons included:[3]

Publications

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1937

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1938

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1939

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1940

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1941

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1942

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1943

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1944

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1945

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1946

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1947

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1948

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1949

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1950

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Undated

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Notes

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  1. ^ Russi Jal Taraporevala, Competition and its control in the British book trade, 1850–1939 (London: Pitman, 1973, ISBN 9780273001447), p. 236
  2. ^ a b Bernhard Dietz, Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929-1939) (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018), p. 108
  3. ^ a b c d e f Right Book Club, publishinghistory.com, accessed 22 July 2021
  4. ^ Dietz (2018), p. 109
  5. ^ Julia Stapleton, Sir Arthur Bryant and National History in Twentieth-century Britain (Lexington Books, 2005), p. 119
  6. ^ Dietz (2018), p. 110
  7. ^ Stuart Sillars, Picturing England Between the Wars: Word and Image 1918-1940 (Oxford University Press, 2022), p. 127
  8. ^ Clive Bloom, Bestsellers: Popular Fiction Since 1900 (2022), p. 122
  9. ^ E. H. H. Green, Ideologies of Conservatism: Conservative Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 151
  10. ^ G. C. Webber, The Ideology of the British Right, 1918–1939 (Croom Helm, 1986) p. 161
  11. ^ a b Right Book Club, Open Library, accessed 25 July 2021
  12. ^ Ursa Major: a study of Dr. Johnson and his friends, openlibrary.org, accessed 23 July 2021

Further reading

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