Harry Price Library of Magical Literature

Biography of Harry Price Periodicals in the Harry Price Collection Rare Books in the Harry Price collection Digitised content and Links to related websites

Harry Price deposited his collection with Senate House Library in 1937, and bequeathed it to the University on his death, which occurred in 1948, requesting that it be known as the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature. The Library reflects the lifelong interest Price had in magic in its widest sense - from conjuring tricks to psychic phenomena.

The collection sprang from an early interest in conjuring brought about, according to Price, by a visit, at the age of eight, to a fairground quack to have a tooth pulled. Price recalls that he was distracted by magic tricks performed as part of the 'Great Sequah's' show, and in losing his tooth gained a lifelong interest in magic. His parents sought to satisfy the young Price's demands for explanations of how an "empty" hat contained two doves by purchasing a book called Modern Magic by 'Professor Hoffmann'. Price describes this book as 'the nucleus of this collection and my first introduction to that vast literature on phenomenal happenings which I afterwards made my life's study'.

Harry Price became an amateur conjuror and began to collect magical literature. The range of topics within his purview can be seen from the keyword list that he drew up as part of the introduction to the published Short-title Catalogue of what, at that stage, was the Library of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, issued in 1929. Price published a Supplement to that catalogue in 1935, with a slightly different list of 'curious subjects'. His collection developed to reflect his interest in psychic phenomena and the means of testing any apparent manifestation of such phenomena: 'occult and magical works … useful to the psychical researcher and especially to the student who wishes to conduct his experiments scientifically'. Price himself became a noted psychic investigator and ghost hunter.

Harry Price gave himself a very wide bibliographic scope in which to collect. The date range of the collection is from incunabula to contemporary publications. He collected all formats of publication: books, periodicals, pamphlets, ephemera and almanacs. As his collecting progressed Price amassed a significant quantity of works from the hand-press period, many of which can be regarded as Rare Books. Harry Price collected all manner of publications, works of fiction take their place alongside memoirs, biographies, treatises, histories, reports, books of practical instruction and magical texts.

The original bequest from Harry Price has been augmented from various sources. By giving an endowment to Senate House Library to permit the purchase of additional material, Price indicated that he wished his Library to continue to expand. Some items have been added from the stock of Senate House Library, and others have come from the bequest of Allan Heywood Bright, made in 1942, of 1,951 books on psychical research and related subjects - other items from this bequest have been incorporated in to the general stock of Senate House Library. Another source was a collection of relevant books donated by the Wellcome Institute Library. In recent years the collection has benefited from books given by Mr Robert Loomis and Mr Patrick Lindley.

In the forward to the Supplement to the Short-title Catalogue, Harry Price explains further the nature of his collection: 'Apart from its bibliographical and historical interest, the main purpose of the Research Library is to assist the student in the investigation of alleged phenomenological happenings; to help him detect the psychic imposter and charlatan; and to enable him to recognise genuine phenomenon, if and when he sees one. There are so many facets to the alleged miraculous, that the student is compelled to explore a great number of queer by-paths of literature in order that he may acquire knowledge with which to combat fraud in its various disguises.'

The total number of books, pamphlets and periodical titles in the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature amounts to nearly 13,000 items. A proportion of those published between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries is available as digitised facsimiles on the database Victorian Popular Culture. The selection of texts was made by Professor Peter Otto, Chair of Literary Studies, University of Melbourne, and published by Adam Matthew Digital.

During his very active life, Harry Price generated an enormous Archive of sundry papers, correspondence, press cuttings, photographs and artefacts, all of which has now been catalogued and is available for consultation.

See the Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue.

Short-title Catalogue, 1929 and Supplement, 1935

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