The Newcastle Publishing Company was a Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

-based small trade paperback publisher

Publishing

Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...

 founded by bookstore owner Al Saunders, active from July 1971 through October 1992, under the editorial direction of Robert Reginald and Douglas Menville, formerly the editors of the speculative fiction

Speculative fiction

Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...

 magazine Forgotten Fantasy

Forgotten Fantasy

Forgotten Fantasy: Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy was a short-lived American fantasy and science fiction magazine published by Nectar Press. Douglas Menville served as editor, and Robert Reginald as associate editor...

. Saunders died in 1997, and Newcastle was later acquired by Career Press.

The company originally reprinted out-of-print metaphysical

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

 books that had reverted to the public domain, quickly branching out into fiction and, in 1980, original works. It continued to specialize primarily in New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

 and other fringe materials, including psychic powers

Parapsychology

The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...

, fortune-telling

Fortune-telling

Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...

, tarot reading, numerology

Numerology

Numerology is any study of the purported mystical relationship between a count or measurement and life. It has many systems and traditions and beliefs...

, and handwriting analysis

Graphology

Graphology is the pseudoscientific study and analysis of handwriting, especially in relation to human psychology. In the medical field, it can be used to refer to the study of handwriting as an aid in diagnosis and tracking of diseases of the brain and nervous system...

. It also published self-help books.

In fiction Newcastle is best remembered for its Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library

Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library

The Newcastle Forgotten Fantasy Library was a series of trade paperback books published by the Newcastle Publishing Company between 1973 and 1980...

, which reissued two dozen neglected classics of fantasy literature

Fantasy literature

Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...

 between 1973 and 1980, including works by William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

, H. Rider Haggard

H. Rider Haggard

Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...

, Lord Dunsany

Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany was an Irish writer and dramatist, notable for his work, mostly in fantasy, published under the name Lord Dunsany...

, and Leslie Barringer

Leslie Barringer

Leslie Barringer was an English editor and author of historical novels and historical fantasy novels, best known for the latter.-Life:...

, among other authors. In all, Newcastle published 178 books,.

The firm was successively headquartered in Hollywood

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

 and North Hollywood

North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

North Hollywood is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, along the Tujunga Wash. It is bounded on the south by Moorpark Street and the Ventura Freeway, on the southwest by Burbank Blvd...

; some of its offerings also specify Tarzana

Tarzana, Los Angeles, California

Tarzana is a district in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The neighborhood is located on the site of a former ranch owned by author Edgar Rice Burroughs, who named it Tarzana after his jungle hero character Tarzan.-Geography:Tarzana, a district...

 and Van Nuys

Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California

Van Nuys is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.-History:Look at the two photos of Van Nuys' first year—and then listen to what the Los Angeles Times wrote on February 23, 1911, the day after the Van Nuys town lot auction--"Between dawn and dusk, in the...

as places of publication.