Lewi, William Grant II (1902-1951)

Writer and astrologer who authored two of the most popular books in twentieth-century astrology. Grant Lewi was born in Albany, New York, on March 24, 1902. He graduated from Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, and did graduate work at Columbia University. He then became an instructor of English at the University of North Dakota, the University of Delaware, and Dartmouth College (successively).

In 1926 he married Carolyn Wallace. Wallace's mother was an astrologer and gave Lewi his first lessons in the field. Although he had written several fairly successful novels, Lewi turned to astrology in the early 1930s to supplement his income. He wrote the eminently successful Heaven Knows What in 1935. In the late 1930s he became editor of Horoscope Magazine, for which he also wrote articles through the 1940s. In 1940 he issued his first astrological text, Astrology for the Millions (1940), an early attempt to make astrology available to the average person who had never studied the details of horoscope construction. Like Heaven Knows What, it has gone into many editions and remains in print today.

Lewi eventually developed his own system of chart interpretation based on an integration of sign and house influences with some psychological insights.

In 1950 he moved to Arizona, where he began his own magazine, The Astrologer. He died the following year, on July 14, 1951, in Tucson.

Sources:

Holden, James H., and Robert A. Hughes. Astrological Pioneers of America. Tempe, Ariz.: American Federation of Astrologers, 1988.

Lewi, Grant. Astrology for the Millions. Garden City, N.Y.: N.p., 1940.

——. Heaven Knows What. New York: Doubleday, 1935.

——. Your Greatest Strength. New York: N.p., 1946.