Ruth Brandon (born 1943) is a British journalist, historian and author.
Brandon was born inLuton, where her family had a factory, grew up inEdgware. Her grandparents were Jewish refugees from Russia. Brandon attendedNorth London Collegiate School. She studied English and French atGirton College, Cambridge and then a women's college.[1]
Brandon began her career as a trainee producer for theBBC, working in radio and television. She moved to work infreelance journalism and as an author.[2] She is the author of many works of both fiction and non-fiction.[3]
Brandon's popular bookThe Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1983) was republished byPrometheus Books. The book has been an influence onskeptics as it debunkedspiritualism by documenting the absurdity and fraud inmediumship.[4]Martin Gardner wrote "Thousands of books about spiritualism have been written by believers, skeptics, and fence-sitters, but none demonstrates as convincingly asThe Spiritualists the unbelievable ease with which persons of the highest intelligence can be flimflammed by the crudest of psychic frauds."[5]
In the early 1980s Brandon was involved in a dispute with the paranormal authorBrian Inglis over the mediumship ofDaniel Dunglas Home in theNew Scientist magazine.[6][7][8]
Brandon lives in London with her husband Philip Steadman, an art historian.[9] Their daughter, Lily, was born 1982.[10]
Fiction
Non Fiction
