Mysteries of the Unknown is a series of books about the paranormal, published on the North-American home market by Time-Life Books from 1987 through 1992. Each book focused on a different topic, such as ghosts, UFOs, psychic powers and dreams. Book titles included The UFO Phenomenon, Witches and Witchcraft, Hauntings, and more. According to the LinkedIn page of Tom Corry, Time-Life's then-vice president of product management (1984–90) and under whose auspices the series was launched, it was "the largest selling book series Time-Life ever produced."
Genesis The idea for the series was conceived after the publisher's management took note of the popularity in the home market of its preceding Enchanted World myths and folklore book series. A polling of its customer database revealed that there was a "decent interest" among customers in having a more mysterious and metaphysical book series as well, according to Tom Corry. The publisher also played into the era's growing popular fascination with the para- or supernatural, which eventually culminated in the long-running and hugely successful 1993-2000 X-Files television series and the many motion picture emulators it spawned afterwards. Corry recalled that management "thought we could probably squeeze a series out of this," and went ahead with the development of the series. The Enchanted World series had already set in motion Time-Life Books' trend towards more sensationalism away from the hitherto soberly and scientifically written publications, the publisher was until then renowned for. Mysteries of the Unknown though, took it up a notch and the actual "The Editors of Time-Life Books" content writers/creators resented their management for it, or as Corry had put it, "Oh yeah. They hated that stuff." At first the editorial staff seemed to be justified in their skepticism as initial sales were slow when the series was launched in the early summer of 1987. On August 16–17 1987, the Harmonic Convergence event took place, which sparked a massive upsurge in worldwide interest in the topics covered by the Time-Life series, and sales took off with Corry recalling that "[r]ight after that, in the fall of '87, we couldn't print enough books." As for the skeptical editors and despite them having never embraced the subject matter, Corry did credit them for their usual steadfast adherence of subjecting the series to the same rigors of investigation and annotation as any of their historical titles, resulting in that the Mysteries of the Unknown series also employed the same basic scientific principles in genuine attempts to validate the credibility of the theories discussed within. The book series broke the sales record for the company, which enabled the New York Times to report that one year into its release, 700,000 copies of the first volume, Mystic Places, had already been sold on the home market alone, while being just one of the eventual 33-volume series.
Release overview Each volume in the 33-volume series, including the Master Index, was either 144 or 160 pages in length (the 176-page volume 11 excepted), heavily illustrated and with pictorial essays on specific topics within each volume and were as a rule issued without a dust jacket. Executed in hardcover, each volume was bound in black faux leatherette, the cover endowed in silver printed text imprints, and with a square shaped illustration glued on. Time-Life Books was renowned for its exclusive use of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) business model, meaning they sold their book series directly to customers and mailed the individual books to households on a (bi-)monthly basis, typically through subscription, and the Mysteries of the Unknown series was no exception. As usual, the book series was supported by a television ad campaign, which was particularly vigorous in this case (see below). By 1991 however, Time-Life Books' DTC business model had started to slump, and the company decided to distribute their publications through regular bookstore retail channels as well alongside their hitherto traditional DTC-only channel.
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