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