Dennis Wheatley Appreciation Group
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Dennis Wheatley was one of England’s most prolific authors, although nowadays his name is all but unknown.
His near contemporaries like John Buchan and Dorothy Sayers have experienced something of a revival, so perhaps a revival of interest in DW is due – not only for his bestselling books like The Devil Rides Out, for which he is most remembered, but also for his role in deception planning in World War II.
Born in 1897 the son of a west end wine merchant, he was educated on the naval training ship HMS Worcester, and spent a year in Germany in 1913 studying wine.
He saw active service in World War I, receiving a commission in the Royal Field Artillery and seeing action at Cambrai, St. Quentin and Passchendaele. Gassed, he was invalided out, and went to work in his father’s wine business, which he inherited when his father died.
The 1920’s were good for him. He specialised in the rarest wines, and in its heyday his firm numbered among its clients three kings, a score of dukes and princes and a number of untitled millionaires.
The great depression hit such firms hard, and in the early 1930s, he was near bankruptcy. His wife Joan suggested he write a book, and he did. His first published book, The Forbidden Territory, about the rescue of an American treasure hunter who was imprisoned in Soviet Russia, was published in 1933 and was an instant success – it was reprinted seven times in seven weeks, and ended up being published in over fourteen languages. Even literary critics could not believe he had never been to Russia, so scrupulous was his research.
The Forbidden Territory was followed by some 50 other novels, of which probably the most famous is DW’s occult classic The Devil Rides Out (1934), in the writing of which he consulted some of the most prominent occultists of his day – Aleister Crowley, Montague Summers and Rollo Ahmed. The book was turned into a film by Hammer Films in 1968, with Christopher Lee taking the lead role.
Among the novels, of which only some 9 had black magic backgrounds, a number had central characters – the Duke de Richleau and his modern musketeers (11 novels), the World War II secret agent Gregory Sallust (11 novels) the 19th century secret agent Roger Brook (12 novels) and the disgraced diplomat Julian Day (3 novels).
More details of DW and his books are to be found on www.denniswheatley.info, which is the premier online resource on the author and which has its own chat room. A definitive biography on DW is being published in the Autumn by Phil Baker, called ‘The Devil Is A Gentleman’.
Time for a revival !
His near contemporaries like John Buchan and Dorothy Sayers have experienced something of a revival, so perhaps a revival of interest in DW is due – not only for his bestselling books like The Devil Rides Out, for which he is most remembered, but also for his role in deception planning in World War II.
Born in 1897 the son of a west end wine merchant, he was educated on the naval training ship HMS Worcester, and spent a year in Germany in 1913 studying wine.
He saw active service in World War I, receiving a commission in the Royal Field Artillery and seeing action at Cambrai, St. Quentin and Passchendaele. Gassed, he was invalided out, and went to work in his father’s wine business, which he inherited when his father died.
The 1920’s were good for him. He specialised in the rarest wines, and in its heyday his firm numbered among its clients three kings, a score of dukes and princes and a number of untitled millionaires.
The great depression hit such firms hard, and in the early 1930s, he was near bankruptcy. His wife Joan suggested he write a book, and he did. His first published book, The Forbidden Territory, about the rescue of an American treasure hunter who was imprisoned in Soviet Russia, was published in 1933 and was an instant success – it was reprinted seven times in seven weeks, and ended up being published in over fourteen languages. Even literary critics could not believe he had never been to Russia, so scrupulous was his research.
The Forbidden Territory was followed by some 50 other novels, of which probably the most famous is DW’s occult classic The Devil Rides Out (1934), in the writing of which he consulted some of the most prominent occultists of his day – Aleister Crowley, Montague Summers and Rollo Ahmed. The book was turned into a film by Hammer Films in 1968, with Christopher Lee taking the lead role.
Among the novels, of which only some 9 had black magic backgrounds, a number had central characters – the Duke de Richleau and his modern musketeers (11 novels), the World War II secret agent Gregory Sallust (11 novels) the 19th century secret agent Roger Brook (12 novels) and the disgraced diplomat Julian Day (3 novels).
More details of DW and his books are to be found on www.denniswheatley.info, which is the premier online resource on the author and which has its own chat room. A definitive biography on DW is being published in the Autumn by Phil Baker, called ‘The Devil Is A Gentleman’.
Time for a revival !
