Joan Grant (1907-89) came to fame in 1937 as the author of Winged Pharaoh, a historical novel set in ancient Egypt. ‘I have been enthralled by the book as by nothing I have read for years’ said London’s Sunday Times and it soon leapt into the best seller lists in countries round the world. Admired for its vivid recreation of a civilisation in many ways wiser than ours, it inspired readers with the ideals and values of its young heroine Sekeeta. Seven more novels followed as well as two collections of stories for children.

It was only on publication of her autobiography in 1956, that Joan Grant publicly revealed that ‘during the last twenty years, seven books of mine have been published as historical novels which to me are biographies of previous lives I have known.’ In her later years Joan Grant practised what is now known as ‘past life regression therapy’ with her husband Dr Denys Kelsey and together they wrote Many Lifetimes about their experiences and ideas.