Badger Books was an imprint used by theBritish publisherJohn Spencer & Co. between 1960 and 1967. Badger Books were published in a number ofgenres, predominantlywar,westerns,romance,supernatural andscience fiction. The best-known author of Badger Books isLionel Fanthorpe, who wrote a large proportion of the supernatural and science fiction titles.[1][2]
Samuel Assael (born 1920) set up hisLondon-based publishing company, John Spencer & Co., in 1947.[3] Initially Spencer's output consisted ofpulp magazines, mainly in the science fiction genre (with titles likeFuturistic Science Stories,Tales of Tomorrow *andWonders of the Spaceways). However, with the decline of the pulp magazine and rise of the paperback, Spencer switched to paperback publishing in the mid-1950s. He used a number of imprints, including "John Spencer", "Cobra" and "Badger", but the last of these has become the best known. The Badger Books imprint was discontinued in 1967 although Spencer continued to produce a small number of books (often reprints) until the late 1970s.[1]
In common with other "pulp" or mass-market publishers of the time, Badger Books focused on quantity rather than quality. A new title in each of the major genres appeared each month, generally written to tight deadlines by low-paid authors. One of the most remarkable facts about Badger Books is that much of its outputs was produced by just two authors (using a range ofhouse names and other pseudonyms):John Glasby (over 300novels andshort stories) andLionel Fanthorpe (over 200 novels and stories).
The company was based in Shepherd’s Bush in West London.[3] It ran on a shoestring with Mr Assael overseeing everything. The accounts were overseen by Assaels partner Maurice Nahum.[4] Employees numbered only three, all young men. One worked in the office with Nahum and the other two packed books. David Andersen (the source of this information) worked for this company between 1961 and 1963 mostly in the office with Maurice Nahum.[4]
The bulk of Badger Books' output fell into five genres as follows:
In addition to these five main genres, there were several other short-lived series such as Crime stories (CS-1 to CS-13) and Spy stories (SP-1 to SP-6). The latter books, dating from 1965 to 1967, were intended to "cash-in" on the then-currentJames Bond craze. All six of the Spy books were written by John Glasby under the pseudonym of Manning K. Robertson.