Llewellyn Worldwide

• 1. Introduction

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  In Portland, Oregon, in 1901, an astrologist named Llewellyn George launched what would become Llewellyn Worldwide. He named the company after himself and founded the Portland School of Astrology alongside it. Neither George nor those around him could have foreseen what the company would eventually become. More than a century later, it would be best known for books on witchcraft, Wicca, and the paranormal. What pushed a focused astrology publisher so far from its beginnings? How did the company survive its founder's death and eventually outlast all expectations? The answers run through a relative, a move to Minnesota, and a public appetite for the unexplained that proved remarkably persistent.

• 2. The Astrology Years

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  The Moon Sign Book, edited by George himself, was the company's most prominent annual. The catalogue extended to books as well, and the Llewellyn Publishing Company became the leading astrology publisher in the United States. Several prominent astrologers placed their work with the press. In 1920, the entire operation relocated to Los Angeles. George died in 1954, but the Moon Sign Book continued without pause. Astrologer Sydney Omarr stepped in as editor, and the annual kept reaching readers even as the company itself was about to change hands for the first time.

• 3. Weschcke's Reinvention

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  A printing company purchased the business in 1958, with Richard Juline taking operational control. Two years later, Carl L. Weschcke, a relative of Llewellyn George, acquired the company. He moved headquarters to St. Paul, Minnesota, and renamed it Llewellyn Publications. Under his leadership, the editorial direction shifted substantially. Astrology kept its place in the catalogue, but Weschcke expanded the list to cover witchcraft, Wicca, and occult subjects broadly. The company launched four periodicals: Aquarian Age Preview, Astrology Now, Llewellyn's New Times, and one titled Gnostica. In 1970, a retail bookstore opened in Minneapolis sharing the Gnostica name. It closed after only a few years. Alongside these ventures, the company sponsored an annual gathering called the Aquarian Age Festival. The decade of the 1980s would see Llewellyn reach further still, into magazine publishing.

• 4. Fate and the Rebound

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  In 1988, the company acquired Fate, a magazine devoted to paranormal subjects. The purchase rounded out a catalogue that had grown to span the full range of occult publishing. By 2001, scholar J. Gordon Melton had assessed the company's standing. He described it as "one of the largest publishing and wholesaling organizations of occult, witchcraft, and magical literature in the United States." That same year, however, sales began to decline. In 2002, the company responded with layoffs and a restructuring of its sales and marketing departments. Fate was sold to Galde Press, the company owned by the magazine's own editor-in-chief. By the end of 2003, Llewellyn had recovered. Gross sales reached $16 million, and the company's offices eventually moved from St. Paul to the nearby suburb of Woodbury.

• 5. Imprints and Resilience

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  In 2005, Llewellyn launched Midnight Ink, its first-ever publishing imprint, devoted to mystery fiction. A year later came Flux Books, a second imprint focused on young adult fiction. For a decade, both imprints operated alongside the core occult and New Age catalogue. Then in 2016, Flux was sold to North Star Editions. Midnight Ink lasted two more years before it was shuttered in 2018, a casualty of low sales. Yet the core catalogue proved more durable than either imprint. When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, sales for the company as a whole increased. Llewellyn's occult and New Age titles had outlasted both fiction experiments and continued finding readers well into the twenty-first century.