“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness,” wrote George Orwell. “One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon …”
One of the rewards of this struggle is meeting some excellent people, and I must particularly thank Charles Beck, Roger Dobson, Richard Humphreys, Anthony Lejeune, Ian Sayer, and Timothy d’Arch Smith for their invaluable help.
I am also very grateful in various ways to Bob Anderson, Michael Barber, Louis Barfe, Derek Bradley, Bill Breeze, Bryan Clough, Nicholas Culpeper, Linda Donald, Jeremy Duns, Geoffrey Elborn, Mari Evans, Giles Foden, Nigel Fountain, Keith Hargreaves, Tamsen Harward, Iwan Hedman-Morelius, Michael Horniman, Andrew Jefford, Steve Kandell, Jane Lewis (née Tombe), Patrick Matthews, Benedicte Page, Liz Parratt, Mark Pilkington, Ian Pindar, Robert Potts, Jon Preece, Isabel Quigly, Sandy Robertson, the late Bob Rothwell, Hilary Rubinstein, David Rule, Helmut Schwarzer, Derek Slavin, Jamie Sturgeon, Stephen Whatley, Paul Willetts, Derek Witty, Lizzie Wright, Cheryl Younson and, of course, Sheena.
Philip Brown of Blackwell Rare Books very kindly presented me with a copy of Catalogue A1136 from 1979 – an essential item for anyone interested in Wheatley – and helped with the questions it raised. Robert Hardy and Oliver Irvine of Maggs Bros showed me Wheatley’s manuscript of ‘Of Vice and Virtue’ (Ayesha), courtesy of the Wormsley Library.
Research is one of the more enjoyable parts of writing, and I am indebted to the following people and institutions, visited or corresponded with: Sara Land of the Brotherton Library; Janet McMullin of Christ Church Library; Jan Piggot of Dulwich College Archives; Penelope Hatfield of Eton College Archives; Imperial War Museum Library; C. J. Roberts of the Marine Society; Sheila Knight and other staff at the Public Record Office; Jean Rose of Random House Archives; Pamela Clark of The Royal Archives; Malcolm Brown of the St John’s Wood Society; Professor William Ryan at the Warburg Institute; Westminster Local Studies Library; the Wiener Library; Geoffrey Dunster of the Old Worcesters; and the Wormsley (Getty) Library. I also used the British Library, and above all the irreplaceable London Library (in the words of Borges, “I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.”)
Wheatley always liked to belong, and in pursuit of this strand of the story I want to thank R. T. Smith of Boodle’s; Graham Snell of Brooks’s; Betty Beesley of the Garrick; Peter Bond of the Savage; David Anderson of White’s; Christopher Denvir of the Royal Society of Arts; Maggie Ferguson and Julia Abel Smith of the Royal Society of Literature; Ilene Wilson of the Royal Society of St George; and particularly Merlin Holland of the Saintsbury Club.
I was helped financially during the long haul of this book by the Authors’ Fund, the Royal Literary Fund, and the Wingate Foundation. It is very encouraging to receive awards from such bodies, and their role in keeping writers from despondency as well as financial ruin is probably under-recognised. I am doubly grateful to them.
Last – but, in fact, foremost – I should like to thank Dennis Wheatley’s family, particularly Anthony, Annette, and Dominic, for their hospitality and generosity with their time.
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Unpublished material from Aleister Crowley, Tom Driberg, Eric Gordon Tombe and Dennis Wheatley is quoted by gracious permission of Hymenaeus Beta of the Ordo Templi Orientis, David Higham Associates, Jane Lewis, and the Wheatley family, respectively. The author and publishers would be glad to hear from any other copyright holders that they have been unable to trace.