Left Book Club (London, England)

The Left Book Club is a publishing group that exerted a strong left-wing influence in Great Britain, during its initial run, from 1936 to 1948. It was relaunched in 2015 by Jan Woolf and Neil Faulkner, in collaboration with Pluto Press. Pioneered by Victor Gollancz, it offered a monthly book choice, for sale to members only, as well as a newsletter that acquired the status of a major political magazine. It also held an annual rally. Membership peaked at 57,000, but after the Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact of 1939, it disowned its large Communist element, and subsequent years of paper-rationing, during and after the war, led to further decline. It ceased publishing in 1948. The concept and series was revived in 2015, following at least one earlier effort to relaunch the series in the early 2000s.