Melvin Powers (born 1922) was an American publisher best known as the founder of Wilshire Book Company. Publicly available information about his life and career is limited, and only one of his works is held in this collection, A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis. That book suggests his interests lay in introductory, practical guidance on self-hypnosis, written for general readers and emphasizing usable methods rather than abstruse theory. Such self-help titles were popular in the American publishing market of the mid-to-late twentieth century, and this short work has retained a measure of readability and reference value in its field.
