Joan Marshall Grant Kelsey (London, 12 April 1907 – 3 February 1989) was an English writer of historical novels and a reincarnationist.
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Life
Joan Marshall was born on 12 April 1907, in London, daughter of John Frederick Marshall and Blanche Emily Hughes. Joan Marshall's father, a wealthy man, was of dual US-British nationality—a prizewinning tennis player who at one point won his place in the semi-finals of the World Championship for each country, and thus needed to play against himself. A serious amateur entomologist, he also carried out at his own expense valuable pioneering work on the Anopheles mosquito for which purpose he had installed a full research unit on Hayling Island.
Joan Marshall spent her early years on Hayling Island in Hampshire. She remembered being a lively, determined girl. She was trained in ballet, until an injury ended the pursuit. She learned tennis, and as a young woman won the Hampshire Ladies Golf finals, claiming she had never before played golf. She also described herself as an excellent, and risk-taking, horsewoman.
Joan said that she learned aspects of science by assisting her father with his entomological research. H. G. Wells was a friend of Joan's father whom Joan remembered as an admirer and sometime mentor. Joan described her mother as having had second-sight visions. Joan herself said she experienced parapsychological phenomena from young girlhood, and her sensitivity was recognized not only by herself but by friends, who often told her it was eerie.