Dennis Wheatley never threw anything away – not just letters and manuscripts, but brochures, menus, tickets – and instead he filed it for reference.
A quantity of this material was destroyed after his death in 1977, but a good deal survived to be sold at Sotheby’s, London, on the 8th December 1983, lot 272: “The personal papers of Dennis Wheatley comprising a huge archive of letters […] photographs, diaries, notebooks, address books, party lists, firm catalogues and Christmas cards […] and many other miscellaneous papers and mementos. Many thousands of items largely bundled up by Wheatley himself according to year in a number of boxes and sacks.” This great heap of material (“Sold not subject to return”) remained largely intact in the hands of its buyer, Ian Sayer, and was invaluable for this book. It is referenced as ‘Archive’.
Central to the archive is Wheatley’s account of Eric Gordon Tombe’s disappearance, simply entitled DEGT. This is accompanied by Wheatley’s scrapbooks about the case, which add up to over two hundred and fifty pages, often with three or four cuttings to a page.
I have anonymised a number of Wheatley’s post-war correspondents – none of them remotely public figures – who are all but impossible to trace for permission clearances but can hardly have expected their private letters would appear in a book. I have anonymised individual IRD staff in Chapter 38 for the same reason. Page references to published fiction have been largely omitted when the work itself is clear.
ABBREVIATIONS
Blackwell’s: Blackwell’s catalogue A1136 A Catalogue of Books from the Library of Dennis Wheatley
D&I Drink and Ink
DEGT Disappearance of Eric Gordon Tombe
DP The Deception Planners
GGG Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts
O&TG Officer and Temporary Gentleman
STF Stranger Than Fiction
TLS Times Literary Supplement
TYMS The Young Man Said
INTRODUCTION: THE DEVIL IS A GENTLEMAN
“… rosy twilight on the skulls of stone demons.” Iain Sinclair, Lights Out For The Territory (London, Granta, 1997) p.371
Fifty million copies: the largest figure usually quoted in connection with Wheatley’s sales, as in D&I p.266.
luxury tradition of cheap fiction: “the luxury traditions of the cheap novel,” review of The Forbidden Territory, TLS February 9th 1933, p.94.
“… You’re English! You couldn’t do it!” They Found Atlantis (Hutchinson, 1936) p. 68
To study Wheatley is to study popular taste: J. Randolph Cox, ‘Dennis Yates Wheatley,’ Dictionary of Literary Biography volume 77, p.321.
Maurice Richardson: ‘Satan On Our Side’ [review of They Used Dark Forces], Observer, 18th October 1964
“truss-stuffer” Richardson op.cit.; bank manager and lady novelist Graham Lord, ‘When Dennis Wheatley Was Scared Stiff of the Devil’ [review of O&TG] Sunday Express, January 1977.
‘Sex, Jingoism and Black Magic: The Weird Fiction of Dennis Wheatley’ Jessica Amanda Salmonson, The Weird Review [internet] (2000).
“… how come he is so familiar with their contents?” Robert Irwin, Satan Wants Me (Dedalus, 1999) p.195.
“… Devil’s been pretty decent about it.” David Blundy, ‘That Old Black Magic,’ Observer 4th July 1971.
CHAPTER ONE: FAMILY ROMANCES
The story of the two boys is in Chapter One of TYMS. Ready Money was less of a country boy than Wheatley suggests: he was not born in St Neots as Wheatley says [TYMS p.15] but Lambeth, South London, in 1849, later living in the St.Neots area with his widowed mother.
“the Great God Respectability” – YMS p.16
“Better to be born lucky than rich” – op.cit p.21
“… when they were young those ‘70s were the very devil.” – op.cit p.21
“three kings, twenty-one princes […] and many millionaires.” Dennis Wheatley 75 8 January 1972 [Hutchinson 75th birthday brochure, unpaginated, first page]
The John Wheatley story is in Chapter One of YMS; Wheatley’s heredity calculation p.15.
“appalling conditions … sanctimonious and truly immoral …” YMS pp.198–99
“for what it is worth” YMS p.13; “tradesman” YMS p.24; “My mother detested the Wheatleys …” YMS p.49
CHAPTER TWO: THE LOST LAND
Wallpaper YMS pp.38–9
Charlie the doll YMS pp.41–2
“… at any moment they will be shown into his study” Tony Wilmot, ‘The Secret Life of Dennis Wheatley’, Titbits March 15–21 1971 pp.30–31
Wheatley’s defence of Chums YMS p.45
Kindergarten love of Honor YMS pp.43–4
Aspen house artworks: Auction catalogue for Aspen House by Herring, Son and Daw. Tues 21, Wed 22, Thurs 23, Tues 28, Wed 29, Thurs 30 November 1916. Byron’s tea service, Napoleon’s smoking outfit, and the piping bullfinch mentioned in contemporary newspaper reports, now in a scrapbook formerly owned by Wheatley.
Knights worth £300 YMS pp.40–41
Olga Franklin on Streatham: Books and Bookmen, Vol.8, no.9 ( June, 1963) p.9.
Aunt Emily story YMS p.51
Gardener Gunn and “small boy’s paradise” YMS p.54
CHAPTER THREE: TELLING TALES
“a healthy mind …” George E Clarke, Historic Margate p.60.
Skelsmergh: in YMS Chapter Five
The story of the man on the stairs figured in Wheatley’s Thirties talks (e.g. Eton Literary Society Feb 22 1939, reported Eton Chronicle no.2405, Feb 23 1939) and appears in his novel The Haunting of Toby Jugg (1948) pp.24–33; 37–38; TDAAHW (1971) p.264, and finally YMS (1977) pp.62–64.
“… one swallow really does make a summer” YMS p.64
Little Arthur’s History of England, Wheatley’s annotation Blackwell’s item 322.
“… knife and revolver are not much in evidence” W.H.Collingridge, Tricks of Self-Defence (London, Health and Strength Ltd., n.d.), Introduction
“… as their young bodies crave” YMS p.84.
Grandmother Sarah and the robin, YMS p.95
CHAPTER FOUR: THE BAD MAN IN EMBRYO
Wheatley discusses his time at Dulwich in YMS, Chapters Seven and Nine.
“Fine innings, Wodehouse …” Tom Hiney, Raymond Chandler (Chatto, 1997) p.14
“a bad atlas and a damn bad school.” Blackwell’s item 117
CHAPTER FIVE: JAM TODAY
Wheatley discusses his time on HMS Worcester in YMS chapters 9, 11, 12,
Wheatley’s correspondence with Hilda Gosling from 1912 to 1955, the bulk of it covering 1912 to 1921, is held by the Brotherton Library, Leeds.
“Bigger than me … Rag-Time Barmy … other people existing as well as yourself” DW to Hilda Gosling, Jan 22, 1912 (spelling normalised). “Spicie bits” March 6 1913.
Wheatley’s HMS Worcester school reports are in the keeping of The Marine Society, Lambeth Road, SE1
“… never have expected a prize for Scripture to come in so useful.” Blackwell’s item 1326.
Contemporary pen portraits of Avery, Ramage, Goldreich et al quoted in YMS Chapter 11
The story of “Blue Hat” is in YMS Chapter 10
Untitled poem of one hundred lines about Douglas, circa 1918. Archive.
“… we were all like a pack of Monks …” Letter to Hilda Gosling 27 November 1913
Wheatley discusses Dieseldorrf in YMS Chapter 12
Escapade of visiting Dieseldorff: YMS 185–87; contemporary account in letter to Hilda Gosling, March 6 1913.
“fine old Pagan god” YMS 187
“ripping sensation” letter to Hilda March 6 1913
“awfly bucked … awfly deacent set” letter to Hilda 27 November 1913
CHAPTER SIX: GOOD GERMANS
Wheatley’s account of going to Germany is in YMS Chapters 13 and 14. The station master anecdote: YMS 189. Rogniski the sword swallower and Cologne cathedral YMS 190, 191; letter to Hilda 16 May 1913.
“If I believed in JC, I’d be an RC.” Annette Wheatley
The German air show, YMS 192–4, contrasted with letter to Hilda 16 May 1913
“awfley deacent and they all like the Englander” letter to Hilda 16 May 1913 “I have found some awfley nice chaps … simply topping chaps …” 27 November 1913
The Kaysers, little Alfred, “roar their heads off with laughter”; undated letter (“Wednesday”) to Hilda, 1913
“… a sing-song or dance would have been taken as a clear indication that one had sold oneself to the Devil” YMS pp.207–8
Calypso, “Always marry a woman uglier than you!” Anthony Wheatley
Bathing anecdote YMS 210–212 contrasted with undated “Wednesday” letter to Hilda Gosling.
Pia Emert and the cauliflower, YMS 227–8; letter to Hilda 27 November 1913
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE CURTAIN
“cloven hoof” YMS 212.
Letters to Barbara Symonds: there are six draft letters to Barbara in Wheatley’s archive, but since all but one are undated no separate references will be given.
Marriage to Barbara as “the dominant decent thought in my existence,” undated draft letter to Cecil Cross.
Cousin Laurie on women YMS 245–46
Night at the opera YMS 247–48; OaTG p.14.
“… nothing about life before 1914 which I didn’t like … Fools and their wars have spoilt it.” Gerald Hamilton in John Symonds, Conversations with Gerald (London, Duckworth, 1974) p.163)
Claud Cockburn and Edwardian anxieties I, Claud … (Penguin, 1967) p.9.
CHAPTER EIGHT: OFFICERS AND MEN
“mob psychology” O&TG p.26
Wheatley on Kitchener O&TG p.29
“… brother officers who had been at Eton, Harrow, and Winchester.” ‘Living Portrait’ filmscript by Wheatley pp.7–8, circa 1968. Archive.
“Those boots must have cost a small fortune …” O&TG pp.61–2
Wheatley’s “40 / 70” list of sexual encounters is a sheet of paper inserted into a notebook, now in the possession of the Imperial War Museum, London
Letters to Hilda: “neither God nor the Devil seem to get much forwader” (May 1916); “petticoat … the world, the flesh, and the devil” (first letter from France, undated); “… the Devil must have had a particularly amusing and gratifying three days at my expense …”
(29 January 1918); “petticoat … Old Nick his just dues, in oats …” (22 May 1918).
CHAPTER NINE: THE RICH WOT GETS THE PLEASURE
“… night of a lifetime” O&TG pp.92–4
Faked pictures, “Our Boys on the Western Front” O&TG p.95
Watering horses O&TG p.104
“One doesn’t fetch horses in the RFC” undated letter to Hilda c. January 1916
“an awfley good stroke of luck … [Nobby Clark] … one of God’s own White Men.” Letter to Hilda May 1916.
Forever Amber, Blackwell’s item 2222.
Sibilla O&TG 114–16; “Sibyle,” diary in Imperial War Museum.
“Well you wouldn’t be sittin’ ‘ere …” Untitled poem about Douglas. Archive.
Colonel Clark’s report, cited O&TG 129–30.
“Made friends in War with curious type of man …”. With Gosling correspondence, probably by Hilda herself.
“impaired in health and possibly in moral character,” unidentifiable press cutting in Wheatley’s three scrapbooks about the Tombe murder case. Henceforth Tombe scrapbooks. Archive.
“a very genial young man, clean-shaven … walked with a limp”; “a gentlemanly young fellow, well-dressed, and well spoken” Tombe scrapbooks.
Wheatley’s notes on Tombe’s way of speaking and catchphrases, single sheet c.1922. Archive. Henceforth ‘Tombe phrases’.
“Masterly Policy of Inactivity,” Tombe phrases, cf The Devil Rides Out (Hutchinson, 1934) p.277
Tombe on God: Tombe phrases.
“In mental development I owe more to him …” O&TG p.135.
breakfasted “sumptuously” letter to Hilda, January 1916
“conscious hedonist”; “cynical but happy”. O&TG p.136
“imitation of gentleman,” Tombe phrases.
“bimana,” Tombe phrases
Draft letters to Barbara, undated. Archive
Church parade story, Neo-Nestorian O&TG pp.138–9
Praying to the Devil at cards: this story first appears in Wheatley’s Sunday Graphic articles about Black Magic (from June 1956), reprinted in the 1963 revised edition of GGG, p.237. Retold O&TG (“It scared me stiff”) pp.139–40.
Lunch anecdote, “Lucullan feast” O&TG pp.142–3.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY
“a positive menace and had to be got rid of quickly as possible.” Michael Howard, ‘Haig-bashing’ (review of Haig’s Command: A Reassessment by David Winter) London Review of Books 25 April 1991.
“Havre with Colsell” and “Havre Tartoni’s” – Wheatley’s sex diary sheet, Imperial War Museum.
“extremely interested in sex” and “preventive methods” – note with Gosling correspondence.
VD camps for padres: O&TG p.153
“… every ounce of food and ammunition …” ‘Motor Trips’ notebook, from the Times Book Club, circa 1939. Archive. Henceforth ‘Motor Trips.’
“… The Overturned Gasometer, The Lunatic Asylum …” Motor Trips.
“a German 8in [shell] landed quite near …” first letter to Hilda from France, undated. Compare O&TG p.156, SWB p.16.
“… artillery does go faster than a trot sometimes.” ibid.
“long periods of intensive boredom punctuated by moments of acute fear.” ibid.
Wheatley’s incredible journey is recounted in O&TG pp.157–182, closely adapted from SWB (1961) pp.50–75.
Wheatley’s thoughts on officers currying favour O&TG p.54
CHAPTER TWELVE: LAST HOPE OF THE GENERAL STAFF
Allenby had taken Palestine … O&TG p.202
Sensation of being watched from the ruins of the chateau: O&TG pp.193–195; TDAAHW pp.265–7
Story of Picquet’s sister O&TG pp.195–6 and TDAAHW p.291
Letter to Hilda with “Pickett”; first letter from France, undated.
“… you can see CAMBRAI plainly …” Motor Trips.
“… no part in the actual fighting … But I was there …” O&TG p.192
“… but some madman sent me.” First letter to Hilda from France, undated.
“the Gods have been kind to me …” ibid.
“… gunnery course over Christmas …” letter to Hilda 29 January 1918
Sergeant Watkins O&TG pp.199; 224
“Pergoda”: Motor Trips.
“when father papered the parlour” “quite ancestral” letter to Hilda 29 January 1918
Palmistry, see Blackwell’s items 889, 890, 951, 1873, all with annotations about the Western Front; Cheiro’s Book of Numbers, Blackwell’s item 888.
The last German push, O&TG 204ff; Wheatley prays to God and later “Lords of Light” p.205
“Get out! The Germans are coming!”; “… and run from the Germans afterwards.” O&TG 209; 210.
Brigadier-General Brock and his Jersey cow, SWB p.119; “… your men have lost their steel helmets …” SWB 120, O&TG 213; “… authority over other human beings.” SWB p.121.
The girl under bombardment at Amiens, O&TG 216–17
“providing the Hun doesn’t send them a special packet …” letter to Hilda 29 January 1918
“… my dear old friend the enemy Bronchitis” letter of 14 May 1918
“I had been badly gassed” SWB p.123
“… floundering like a man in fire or lime …” Wilfred Owen, ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’
“… I am the last hope of the General Staff …” letter of 14 May 1918
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE ONLY GIRL
“dear old England” O&TG p.226; the ambulance return O&TG pp.227–28.
“… Chatham House garden …”; “… your news in re the Devil …” letter to Hilda 22 May 1918
Story of Marie at Kettners, O&TG 230–31
Cabinets particuliers: Ann Veronica and Jean Rhys from E.S.Turner An ABC of Nostalgia pp.189–90.
“the dominant decent thought of my existence, however remote the possibilities of gaining her affection.” – letter to Cecil Cross.
Archive.
“Lady Dear … with a very large heart …” undated draft letter to Barbara. Archive
“… your (imaginary) wound …” O&TG p.234
“… How dare you?” O&TG pp.235–36.
“I would prefer to say no more about Thursday night …” O&TG p.236
“Victory urges me to shout, HOORAY! …” O&TG p.239
“… softly and slowly in the evening when things are quiet and I’ve got a cigarette on …” undated draft letter to Barbara. Archive.
‘Rules of Procedure in re B’, five page handwritten document. Archive.
“… if it had not been for your kindness since my return from France …” undated draft letter. Archive.
Further quotes from undated draft letters to Barbara, including one written over again in 1922: Archive.
“… the Captain had a large barrel of oil poured overboard …” D&I p.21
“woe betide anyone who dared to lay a hand on a British subject … Those were the days.” Ibid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: ERIC’S CRIMSON NIGHTS
Victory parade: D&I p.27
“… truly sorry for that nice old man.” O&TG p.240
“… I’m a soldier of fortune now: I’ll tackle any proposition.” Unidentified press cutting (‘Mrs.Dyer’s Story / Man Who Was A Mystery to His Wife’) in Tombe scrapbooks. Archive.
“Nellie … Kittie, Peggy, Beatrice, Desiree, la Belle Americaine, Mrs Hall, and of course Dolly” from ‘DEGT’ Wheatley’s manuscript memoir of Tombe’s disappearance. Archive. Henceforth DEGT.
“… a long discourse on Masochism and Sadism …” DEGT
‘ “Wets” Final Drink’, unidentified newspaper cutting. Archive.
“… Mr Gordon-Tombe will shortly be calling upon you.” Undated T.L.S. from Sir Augustus Fitzgeorge, The Anti-Prohibition League. Archive.
“… but in the suburbs there is a great deal consumed.” Wheatley’s guide to the London drink trade is enclosed with his letter to Tombe of 14 January 1921. Archive.
Wheatley’s draft advert for “BRITISH LIBERTY’S DEFENCE FUND” is enclosed with his letter to Tombe of 14 January 1921. Archive.
“We wish to make known to you Mr D.Y. Wheatley our special representative …” T.L.S. from Charles K. Sugden, The Anti-Prohibition League, 16 February 1920. Archive.
Romance with Jean Lester, D&I pp.31–32.
“… what about calling at the flat, I’ve got a bottle of the Boy there …” Tombe letter to Wheatley quoted at length in Wheatley letter to Hilda Gosling, 19 November 1921.
“… we drank 6 remaining bottles between the four of us – and – there I draw the curtain —” Letter to Hilda Gosling, 19 November 1921
“… this orgy business is all very well …” Tombe to Wheatley in DEGT
“… do that sort of thing so very much better at home.” Tombe quoted in Wheatley letter to Hilda Gosling 19 November 1921.
Nondescript Players, lamp smashing, police,Louis Newton; D&I pp.33–35.
Monte Carlo: introduction to ‘Borrowed Money’, Meditteranean Nights.
Havelock Ellis’s Studies in the Psychology of Sex, six volumes, inscribed by Tombe and Wheatley. Wheatley’s comments are on his earlier monogrammed bookplates, which have a lined space for notes. In possession of present writer.
“after he had plotted the burning of the Welcomes”; “most wonderful actor he had ever seen” DEGT
“… how wonderful you were on the evening of my famous stunt …” Tombe letter to Wheatley, 1 May 1921. Archive.
“… when that fainting business began.” Tombe letter from RMS Adriatic, 7 September 1920. Archive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SCHEHEREZADE IN STREATHAM
“If I am going to drink … ‘jolly young people’ … but I doubt it.” Letter to Hilda 12 November 1921. Brotherton
“a wonderful decade” D&I p.33
praying to Kwan-Yin D&I pp.37–8
Expenses and invoice to Hilda’s bridegroom John Gardner enclosed with letter of 3 October 1921. Archive.
“The joy which I derived from seeing you both so happy …” Letter to Hilda and John Gardner 22 October 1921.
“Will you please forgive an ordinary mortal …” letter to Hilda and John Gardner 12 November 1921.
“… we do not even see the bubbles … rising from your helmets.” Letter to Hilda and John Gardner 19 December 1921.
“… room of a thousand cushions … joys that a bachelor can have” letter to Hilda of 12 November 1921.
“… girl in grey who was at the wedding and the Station afterwards …” ibid.
Orientalist poem to Nancy: D&I p.43
“… your progress is that of Adonis himself …” Tombe to Wheatley 29 November 1921. Archive.
“… this strange Elixir of Life …” ibid.
“Do not … neglect your reading …”, Tombe to Wheatley 31 January 1922. Archive.
“… you will find epitomised in [Pater’s] Conclusion …” Tombe to Wheatley, 21 September 1921. Archive.
“… Major Macsweeney and Major Coode”, undated note in Tombe’s hand on Wheatley’s business notepaper. Archive.
“… our Russian bookselling friend …” Tombe to Wheatley 31 March 1921. Archive.
Krafft-Ebing and Bloch, Ozhol to Wheatley 12 August 1920. Archive. Book of Strange Loves, “delightful” Blackwell’s item 204.
“… the hoi polloi [sic] …” Tombe to Wheatley 21 September 1921. Archive.
“… we intellectuals.” Ibid.
“penchant for crystallised fruit.” Tombe to Wheatley 12 July 1921. Archive
“… soupcon of 17th century maniere …” Tombe to Wheatley 1 August 1921. Archive.
“Our ways of ascending the mount of Olympus may be slightly different …” Tombe to Wheatley 17 September 1921. Archive.
“Pagan … Eastern point of view … How short one’s life is …” ibid.
“… the paradise of ‘oggins! …” Tombe to Wheatley, 29 September 1920. Archive.
“… the Gallic soul and art.” Tombe to Wheatley, 25 May 1921. Archive.
“The excellent kroner …” Tombe to Wheatley, 30 September 1921. Archive.
“… dear boy, a heaven on earth.” Tombe to Wheatley, 31 January 1922. Archive.
“… quite perfect studies (photographic) …” Tombe to Wheatley, 11 February 1922. Archive.
“Paradise (complete with houris) … lotus eating …” Tombe to Wheatley, 2 March 1922. Archive.
Benedict XV: “… I do not suppose that my gospel … would have appealed to him.” Tombe to Wheatley, 31 January 1922. Archive.
Beatrice to Wheatley: “gets about … happy as the day is long” 13 July 1921; “Heaven itself ” 18 August 1921. Archive.
“Important business …” Tombe to Wheatley, 13 June 1920. Archive.
“… PS will you stamp enclosed letter old man.” Tombe to Wheatley, 14 June 1921. Archive.
“… you have not heard from me.” Tombe to Wheatley, 1 May 1921. Archive.
“… a curious contretemps has taken place in England …” Tombe to Wheatley, 2 March 1922. Archive.
“… the code you suggest is admirable …” Tombe to Wheatley, 3 May 1921. Archive.
‘X’: “will you go to 131 Jermyn St and fix up” Tombe to Wheatley, 30 July 1921. Archive.
“Will you attend to ‘X’ at once?” Tombe to Wheatley, 8 August 1921. Archive.
“… destroy (burn) both letters and envelopes … a cross at the top of your letter …” Tombe to Wheatley, 28 July 1921. Archive.
“… ring up Mrs BELL, Hammersmith 1447 …” Tombe to Wheatley, 17 August 1920. Archive.
“quelle vie” ibid.
Key label “D Key”; scrap of paper with “David Watson …”. Archive.
Wheatley’s letter about Desiree: all quotations, from Bolsheviks and “bimina” down to Burgundy and God, are from this ten sheet letter of 7 September 1920. Archive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: DANGEROUS LIAISONS
“… terrible for you, I truly sympathise …” Tombe to Wheatley 26 October 1920. Archive.
“… shatter some of her illusions regarding your charming self.” Wheatley’s second letter to Tombe about Desiree, 18 September 1920. All following quotes from this forty page letter. Archive.
“… unhampered by the constant sex antagonism.” Desiree to Wheatley, n.d., envelope postmarked 20 September 1920. Archive.
“… a masterly letter, the apotheosis of Dennis”. Tombe to Wheatley, 29 September 1920. Archive.
“… thrilling me 6,100 miles away … how far she is willing to face comparative poverty with me.” Tombe to Wheatley, 17 October 1920. Archive.
“… this David and Jonathan business …” Tombe to Wheatley, 7 September 1920. Archive.
“To have found Sheherezade in Streatham …” Tombe to Wheatley, 30 November 1921. Archive.
“…the more one sees of Nancy …” Tombe to Wheatley 21 December 1921. Archive.
“She had always regarded Eric with suspicion and distrust …” DEGT. Archive.
“… a kick from these expeditions, the bizarre and the unusual …” Wheatley to Nancy, undated, circa 1921–22. Archive.
Down Street tube station, the flat, Mr Winning, crimes in progress; DEGT.
“nasty little man” D&I p.44.
“. . enjoyed so much having one of our little chats together …” DEGT.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: … IN A CLOUD OF BLUE SMOKE
This chapter, including Wheatley’s thoughts on his relationship with Nancy, is taken entirely from the DEGT manuscript. Archive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: MR MEYER INVESTIGATES
This chapter continues to be taken almost entirely from the DEGT manuscript. Oddly, Wheatley doesn’t mention that Beatrice thought the Tombe telegram was a fake because Tombe would never have used the word “overseas.” This is mentioned in several newspaper reports in his scrapbooks, with the same point made by both Tombe’s father and mother.
CHAPTER NINETEEN: MARRIAGE – AND A HORROR
The priest and W.H.Mallock D&I pp.45–6
Wheatley’s letters to Dr Atkinson [n.d.] and Beatrice, 2 May 1922, Archive.
“… the Boy who was dearer to me than life itself …” Beatrice to Nancy and Wheatley 10 May 1922
Desiree claims to see Tombe in Madrid D&I p.49
“… valued at more than £800.” D&I p.47
“To my darling One with all my love, in memory of June 17th 1922.” Nancy inscription in Blackwell’s item 1339.
“Some contrary devil had got into me.” D&I p.50
“… could not have cared less.” Ibid.
Pall Mall Gazette on One Maid Book of Cookery: quoted on dustjacket of My Secret Service by “The Man Who Dined with the Kaiser”
Hamilton on Maundy Gregory, John Symonds, Conversations with Gerald, “jovial” p.53; hatred of Socialism p.52.
“later became notorious” D&I p.52
“… good conversation and the finest wines.” D&I p.53
“proud to have had such a man as an intimate friend” D&I p.54
Clem Spindler, D&I p.41. The Hutchinson text calls him Gem.
Wheatley on Ulysses: from his monogrammed bookplate with space for comments, which seems to have been steamed out of the book (possibly to replace it with his later bookplate). Archive.
The Tombe headlines are from Wheatley’s scrapbooks of the case, comprising around 260 pages, often with three or four cuttings to a page. Many of the papers are unidentifiable, and repetitive due to syndication. I have drawn on these scrapbooks in the following account, supplemented by the Times 14 September to 26 September 1923.
“Yes, that’s my dear boy!’ e.g. Evening News 13 Sept 1923
“Overseas … an expression which my son never used” Rev.Tombe e.g. Yorkshire Herald 14 September 1923.
“BOY” lettered in violets, Times 20 September 1923
Wheatley’s Tombe Wilde bookplate. Draft on sheet of paper, never used. Archive.
“… already caught up with him in a curious way.” D&I p.49.
CHAPTER TWENTY: SAVED IN THE NICK OF TIME
Further details of Tombe’s case from Wheatley’s newspaper scrapbooks.
“… bored to tears.” D&I p.57
“… my King who entertains your King …” D&I p.55
“… soulful-eyed Polish Jew.” D&I p.57
“… the vast and mouldy bottle they kept for people of Rex’s sort.” Brideshead Revisited (Chapman and Hall, 1945) p.157
“… the old brandy racket.” p.59
“Adjectives fail when one desires to describe Huxley’s work …” inscription in Limbo, one of 48 Huxley items, the whole collection Blackwell’s item 1049
Four draft letters to Aldous Huxley, from 10 July to 27 Jly 1926. Archive.
Huxley inscription in Wheatley’s copy of Antic Hay, Blackwell’s item 1049.
Wheatley claims to fire gun during General Strike, D&I p.60
“… to gratify his lust on their bodies” Vecchi on Rasputin TDAAHW p.281.
“… his ideas when speaking of marriage …” Hilda Gardner on scrap of paper, with Gosling correspondence. Wheatley to her husband, ibid.
“… getting to know them better” D&I p.73;
“… desire for one another should gradually wane.” Op.cit p.74
“… anything detrimental about you …” Wheatley letter to Gwendoline Liddiard, n.d. from 12 Chepstow Place. Archive.
Account of Liddiard affair from Wheatley’s draft ‘Account of 1926 and 1927’ (runs from 3 August 1928 “Met Gwen” to March 1928 “DW [i.e. Dudley] turns up again”. All quotations from this document. Archive.
Proust on jealousy: “The demon jealousy …” Remembrance of Things Past (London, Chatto, 1982) Vol.III pp.98–99. Love a desire to know, Vol.I pp.298–99.
Private detective reports from Thomas F.Cox, Assistant Vincent, and Assistant Cavell. Archive.
“… my father died” D&I p.61
Streatham Manor, Leigham Avenue: address recorded on death certificate
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE SEER
“… in a big country house …” D& I p.65
“Imperial Tokay left Austria only as a gift from the Emperor.” D&I p.68; bottle of the 1649 ibid.
Alec Waugh on Tokay, In Praise of Wine (Cassell, 1959) pp.180–81
“… all who are interested in the curious and the rare.” Dennis Wheatley, At the Sign of the Flagon of Gold (London, Wheatley and Son, n.d.) p.11
Wilde catalogue inscribed to Wheatley, Blackwells item 2185.
Wheatley’s instructions to Pape: ‘Particulars for Guidance in Designing Bookplate for Mr Wheatley’, typed sheet, together with ‘Designe [sic] for Book Plate of D Yates Wheatley’, handwritten sheet, and two drawings by Wheatley. Private collection, London.
Gwen D&I pp.75–80; 84.
Wheatley’s untitled poem, “The woman, the dog …” Handwritten on single sheet. Archive.
Five letters to Gwen, one typed, all undated, circa 1927–8. Archive.
Gwen’s Malleus Malleficarum Blackwell’s item 1279, “Given to me by Gwen Lydywed [sic] in the late 1920s …”
“The Lovely Lady of Berkeley Square” D&I pp.80–84
Henry Dewhurst [sic] see D&I pp.84–87; 111–13; TDAAHW pp.66–68; introduction to the Neils Orsen ‘Ghost Hunter’ stories GGG pp.15–18.
“… your sex life is over.” D&I p.85
“… unchained from a lunatic.” Sophocles, recorded in Plato’s Republic, Book I. Variantly translated, and since used to great effect by Daniel Farson, the late George Melly and others.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN
“… Rajahs and millionaires, cabinet ministers and film stars all came to buy those lovely things in which I specialised.” Sunday Graphic ‘Personalities Page’ Sunday January 22nd 1939
“… far exceeds anything ever paid by any other merchant.” Ibid.
“… put my ideas (not more grammatically – dear me no but perhaps more clearly) on paper” letter to Joan 10 November 1929. Archive.
“Am I unreasonable? …” letter to Joan 30 September 1929. Archive.
“Alfonso Thirteenth; then finish.” D&I p.91
“this farce of married life”; “Miss Craven with her poor blind eyes” Letter to Joan 21 November 1929. Archive.
Mr. Wheatley’s “remarkable stocks;” Stambois testimonial, Flagon of Gold p.12.
“… fat, rather tattily dressed, little Polish Jew …” p.71
“Oh yes, I’ve seen life.” Sunday Graphic ‘Personalities Page’ January 22nd 1939
“… Mummy and I are crying.” Annette Wheatley
Wheatley’s divorce papers: ‘Wheatley (N.M.) – v – Wheatley (D.Y)’ Petition filed 26 February 1930; Supplemental Petition filed 18 September 1930.
“Come along Dennis, we’ll be late for the Duchess” Joan Miller, One Girl’s War (County Kerry, Brandon, 1986) p.78.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: FIRST BLOOD
“virtual owner”; “personal credit for any reasonable amount” letter to Joan 21 November 1929. Archive.
“Why don’t you write a book?” D&I p.110
“… outsiders coming and upsetting them.” Cellarman Lewis, letter of 27 December 1932. Archive.
“the Jews of Asia” Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete (Methuen, 1948) p.270.
“They’re Jews! I’m not going to sing …” Charlotte Breese, Hutch (Bloomsbury 1999) p.77.
“… but I wanted my party to be a success.” The Diaries of Robert Bernays 1932–1939 ed Nick Smart (Lampeter, Edwin Mellen, 1996) p.219.
‘Orchids on Monday’ GGG pp.34–47. Doreen Sainsbury p.33
‘The Deserving Poor’ op.cit pp.178–187
‘In the Underground’ op.cit. pp.74–82.
“You’ve written a book!” D&I p.111
‘The Snake’ op.cit. pp.302–318
“First blood!” (“This is our Christmas card this year – see pages 42 and 116 […]”) Nash’s Pall Mall magazine January 1933, inscribed by Wheatley. Collection of Richard Humphreys.
First book letters: over fifty of these survive in draft. Archive.
Justerini cellars party reported Daily Sketch 4 January 1933, and recalled by Wheatley D&I p.114.
“essentially Ruritanian and good of its kind.” TLS February 9th 1933, p.94
“Patagonia to Alaska, Iceland, East to Mandalay …” reproduced on bookjackets e.g. on the Dossiers
Wrote two books and dovetailed, e.g. lecture to RSA; “boy jumping into bed with girl” e.g. D&I p.251
“People who live in miserable rows of grim little houses …” Wheatley interviewed in Popcorn; Anatomy of a Best Seller by Stephanie Nettell, Books and Bookmen p.48
“luxury traditions of the cheap novel.” TLS 9 February 1933 p.94
“A Tibetan Buddha seated upon the Lotus …” The Devil Rides Out pp.28–29.
“Entering her palatial music-room … Tristan and Isolde.” The Selective Ego: The Diaries of James Agate ed Tim Beaumont (Harrap, 1976) p.159
“… sinister potentialities of the cinema and the loudspeaker.” Richards cited in T.Eagleton, ‘A Good Reason to Murder your Landlady’[rev of Richards’s Selected Works 1919–38] London Review of Books 25 April 2002
Beaverbrook on Christ and propaganda: central idea of The Divine Propagandist, his book on Christ begun in 1926 and finally published in 1962.
“hunted like a hare … this ‘Flight of the King’ is the greatest epic of escape in history …” GGG p.192
“I do not approve of an author’s boosting a previous book of his own …” ‘A Capital Thriller’ [review of Such Power is Dangerous] Daily Mail, 6 July 1933
The PEN club D&I p.118
“The Nameless Club”; “only important literary club … 8,000,000 new books every year” ‘Between Ourselves’, Sunday Graphic 9 April 1939
“… exactly as described in Hedley Chilver’s book …” Quoted unsympathetically in review of The Fabulous Valley, TLS 30 August 1934.
Driberg escorted by Wheatley: Wheatley’s Sunday Graphic column, Feb 26 1939
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: LUNCHEON WITH THE BEAST
“One duke, two dukes’ daughters, sundry lords, a bishop …” Francis Wheen, Tom Driberg: His Life and Indiscretions, p.406
Anthony Storr, “evil”: Wheen Driberg p.347
“… the presence of a Master” Driberg to Crowley 15 July 1926. Christ Church Library.
“… I am sorry about the aloes …” Driberg to Crowley 7 April 1926. Christ Church Library.
“… majority could always be led and controlled …” Driberg to Crowley 15 July 1926. Christ Church Library.
“… few and secret … rule the many and the known.” Crowley, The Book of the Law (Weiser, 2004) p.26
“… will only show them to really promising people.” Driberg to Crowley 25 June 1926. Christ Church Library.
“… really unschooltiesome.” Crowley’s diary, 30 August 1938. Warburg Institute.
“the Poet”, “the Golfer,” “the Stenographer” Introduction to Book IV, Magick ed. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant (RKP, 1973) p.130.
Powell on Crowley: Messengers of Day (Heinemann, 1978): “intensely sinister” p.82, “steady flow of ponderous gags” p.82, “false top to his head like a clown’s” p.82 “… like … a horrible baby.” p.83
Maurice Richardson on Crowley: ‘Luncheon With Beast 666’ in Fits and Starts (Michael Joseph, 1979) pp.113–119. Bisque 114; hypnotic eyes 114; sponge-bag trousers 116.
Arthur Calder-Marshall on Crowley: The Magic of My Youth (Hart-Davis, 1951): Who’s Who pp.179–80; “… any money of your own?” p.190; “… trying to outstare me …” p.191; “… blacks and whites … shadres of grey … obsidian monolith of evil” p.177; “Evil was never Pure” p.192
“Recommendations to the Intelligent Reader humbly proffered” etc; Crowley annotations to Magick in Theory and Practice. Private collection, Hampshire. This had been Blackwell’s Item 433.
“magnificent gift” etc.: Wheatley to Crowley, 12 May 1934. Warburg.
Wheatley’s stories about Crowley: The Cambridge Aristophanes story, in e.g. Sunday Graphic series article three, reprinted GGG pp.245; D&I pp.132–33; TDAAHW 273. The Paris story: D&I 132; TDAAHW 276; Introduction to Aleister Crowley, Moonchild (Sphere, 1974) pp.9–10. Member of Parliament “Z” TDAAHW p.276.
The Paris Working is detailed in John Symonds, The Great Beast (Macdonald, 1971) Chapter 13 ‘The High Magick Art’. Overdrafts, mortgages and Consols p.188.
Orwell and Gringoire: in his essay ‘W.B.Yeats.’
Crowley, The Book of The Law (San Francisco, Weiser / O.T.O, 2004) [1926; 1938]: “deem not of change” p.47; “The kings of the earth shall be Kings forever …” p.47; “We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit … the joy of the world.” p.41; “on the low men trample …” p.42; “Pity not the fallen! …” p.45. “I will give you a war-engine …” pp.52–3 “… worship me with swords …” p.53; “Mercy be let off … Kill and torture …” p.54.
Gerald Yorke’s annotated Mein Kampf is in the Warburg Institute.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: TOP CHAPS IN THE FIELD
“top boys”: Aleister Crowley, Rollo Ahmed, Harry Price, and Montague Summers, “all of whom were top boys in that line.” BBC Radio interview with William Hardcastle 16 September 1971
“a mysterious figure … flitting bat-like …” cited in Montague Summers: A Memoir by ‘Joseph Jerome’ [Father Brocard Sewell] (London, Cecil and Amelia Woolf, 1971) p.xi
Palazzo Borghese, “… an enormous human eye.” Summers, The History of Witchcraft and Demonology (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1926) p152. Compare “the well authenticated case … an enormous human eye” in The Devil Rides Out (Hutchinson, 1934) p.37
“… January, 1926, at Melun near Paris.” TDRO p.34
“Free, Madam, I doubt not, but a thinker, no.” Summers, The Galanty Show pp.157–58.
“monstrous things … our cracking civilisation” History of Witchcraft and Demonology p.95
“revolution and red anarchy” HWAD p.23
Summers and Lord Balfour: The Galanty Show p.214
H.G.Wells on Summers: ‘Communism and Witchcraft,’ Sunday Express 21 August 1927; reprinted in Wells, The Way The World Is Going (London, Benn, 1928) pp.94–102.
“one of the most enigmatical figures of the century” Brocard Sewell, introduction to The Galanty Show, p.3.
“chair-croodled” Galanty Show p.7
“The Society is a society in London …” Timothy d’Arch Smith, ‘Montague Summers’ in The Books of the Beast (Crucible, 1987) p.49;
“Across the the crowded palace …” Summers poem ‘To a Dead Acolyte’ cited d’Arch Smith pp.50–51
“This is Satanism …” op.cit p.51
Black Mass with Anatole James op.cit. pp.56–7
“the earliest Black Mass for which there is reliable evidence” Gareth Medway, Lure of the Sinister (NY, New York University Press, 2001) p.382.
“aroused only by devout young Catholics …” d’Arch Smith pp.56
“… the god he worshipped and the god who warred against that god …” op.cit. p.57
The exorcism, mutton and maggots story is recounted by Wheatley in ‘Black Magic is Still A Menace’ Daily Mail 13 August 1935; his Sunday Graphic series, GGG p.243; TDAD Chapter Six; and TDAAHW p.270.
“It has been said that the house was sinister … twinkling eyes” Leslie Staples cited in ‘Joseph Jerome’ [Sewell] Montague Summers p.71
“I like spiders” GGG p.243
“positively demoniac” D&I p.133
“Grandma dying come home immediately” Alice Leonie-Moats, No Nice Girl Swears (Cassell, 1933) p.106.
“the perhaps not so Reverend gentleman” D&I p.134
This account of Wheatley and Summers is based on twenty three letters from Summers to Wheatley written between 10 February and 9 November 1935. They add up to around 8,000 words, and subjects include suitable stories for Wheatley’s Century of Horror anthology and Summers’s attempt to find a publisher for his now lost manuscript The Black Mass. Private collection, Hampshire.
Wheatley and Summers may have had some prior acquaintance – Blackwell’s catalogue lists items 2010 and 2012 inscribed at Christmas 1926 and Christmas 1933 respectively – but these dates could be mistranscribed. On the 14 February 1935 Summers writes “… in the near future … I trust I may have the pleasure of meeting you” and on the 23 February “I shall very much look forward to meeting you.”
“one absentee: Rollo.” Crowley’s diary, 1 January 1938. Warburg.
Wheatley’s Ahmed stories: little black imp hopping about behind Ahmed D&I 134; bungled a ritual and failed to master a demon TDAAHW p.270; hands “warm as toast” D&I 134; TDAAHW p.270; GGG 239
Ahmed’s yoga course for Dennis and Joan, undated manuscript of about a thousand words, n.d. (mid-Thirties). Archive.
“… a bit dangerous for you at the present …” Ahmed letter to Wheatley, accompanying yoga course. Archive.
“the demon finance” Ahmed to Wheatley, 14 November [probably 1936], offered for sale on internet November 2003
“Extraordinary demonstrations …” flyer for Ahmed talk at Shoreham Town Hall, mid-Thirties, offered for sale on internet November 2003
“a jolly fellow” D&I 134
“… the bunk, and that is what we’ll give them”’ Harry Price cited in Robert Wood, The Widow of Borley (Duckworth, 1992) p.24.
“The devotees are a degraded type.. I have attended a Black Mass in Paris …” Harry Price in the Star newspaper [c.1931] in Man Bites Man, the Scrapbooks of an Edwardian Eccentric ed. Paul Sieveking (Penguin, 1981) p.114.
“… as totally English as a man can be …” Robert Aickman, ‘Postscript to Harry Price’, London Mystery Magazine Aug-Sept 1950 p.88
“cruel tricks … sexual jealousy and suspicion.” Wood, The Widow of Borley, p.83
“… never yet met anyone who practised Black, or even Grey, Magic who was not hard up.” GGG p.258.
“a new adventure featuring the four friends from The Forbidden Territory”; “Talisman of Evil” Single sheet draft for blurb or similar. Archive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE DEVIL IN HIS DECADE
“the devil’s decade”. See Collin Brooks, Devil’s Decade: Portraits of the Nineteen-Thirties (Macdonald, 1948), and Claud Cockburn, The Devil’s Decade (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1973)
Nazism as a political religion: see Burleigh, The Third Reich (Macmillan, 2000)
“… not as an improved economic technique but as a religion.” Keynes, 25 October 1925, cited in Observer Sayings of the Week ed Valerie Ferguson (David and Charles, 1978)
“… The dark ages are coming again. I wouldn’t be surprised … to see such horrors as people being burnt alive as witches.” Wittgenstein cited in Edmonds and Eidinow, Wittgenstein’s Poker p.94
“We thought that the war would be as depicted in H.G.Wells’s film …” Robert Aickman, The Attempted Rescue (Tartarus, 2001) p.219
“… I could almost hear the bombs bursting.” Introduction to ‘The Bombing of London’, GGG [1942 edition] p.143
“… wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.” Churchill, cited in Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right, pp.14–15
“We cannot act alone as the policemen of the world.” Beaverbrook citing Bonar Law: AJP Taylor, Beaverbrook p.345
“… hesitated … if they had been told that that the price of destroying Germany would be Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” Taylor, Beaverbrook pp.387–88
“Let the people who are misgoverned free themselves of their autocrats.” Taylor, Beaverbrook p.355
“No war this crisis” Hickey, August 1939, cited Wheen Driberg p.287
“… in that tiny minority, I have since been interested to note, were almost all the autobiographers of the future …” Rupert Croft-Cook, The Sound of Revelry p.66
“The powers of darkness are gathering,” cited Taylor, Beaverbrook p.347
“… sure to be embroiled in war, pestilence and famine,” cited Taylor, Beaverbrook 348
“… Europe’s guardians against the Communist danger,” cited Griffiths p.164
“All this human interest business … serves no good purpose and may even do harm.” Mosley to Mr WH Britain, editor of the Sunday Dispatch, 20 March 1934, collection of Ian Sayer
“tradition of louche goings-on”: Anthony Powell, Infants of the Spring p.87
“bizarre and dramatic …” William Sansom in London: A Literary Companion by Peter Vansittart (John Murray, 1992) p.258
“… Tamerlaine’s bad leg …” Anthony Powell, A Writer’s Notebook (Heinemann, 2001) p.81
“Rothschilds, Sassoons, Mocattas, and Goldsmids” [anon., believed to be William Joyce and filed as such by MI5, Public Records Office KV2 / 245] National Socialist League Monthlyno.2 December 1938 p.6
Nazi swastikas supposedly turn the wrong way: expounded in e.g. Strange Conflict (1941), third chapter.
“the might of this Magick burst out and caused a catastrophe to civilisation” cited d’Arch Smith, The Books of the Beast (Crucible, 1987) p.23.
Umberto Eco on Manichaean James Bond: ‘A Manichaean ideology’ pp.161–63 of ‘Narrative Structures in Fleming’, Eco, The Role of the Reader (Hutchinson, 1981)
T.S.Eliot on “pure villainy”: Eliot interviewed in a Westminster School paper, The Grantite Review, quoted in Tim Jeal Swimming with my Father (Faber, 2005 pbk, p.68)
Devil Rides Out questionnaire: page 329 in some copies, excised in others.
Compton Mackenzie review, ‘Black Magic’, Daily Mail 10 January 1935
Wheatley’s occult mailbag is first discussed in the Daily Mail, ‘Black Magic is Still a Menace’ 13 August 1935, where he mentions the man who wrote to say the Satanic temple was on the other side of Finchley Road. See also e.g. GGG pp.57 (“the Christ” and the man in Broadmoor); GGG 58–9, 236, TDAAHW p.242 (the woman from Essex).
“I would love another chat, esp. about Magick, as you’re on a book; I’d like to hear what you think of mine.” Crowley to Wheatley, private collection.
“Most ingenious, but really a little Ely Culbertson …”. Crowley to Wheatley, note on Claridge’s notepaper May 1934, sold at Sotheby’s with Wheatley’s copy of Crowley’s play Mortadello 7 December 2007 lot 146, formerly Blackwell’s item 534.
“Did you elope with the adorable Tanith? Or did the witches get you Hallowe’en?” Crowley to Wheatley, 1 November 1934. Private collection.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: THE RIGHT KIND OF DOPE
‘Pills of Honour’ unpublished two thousand word manuscript; collection of Richard Humphreys. All quotation, from “should be compulsory reading” to “rapid and quite painless, Sir” from this manuscript.
‘Roderick Random’, Time and Tide 12 January 1935.
Wheatley’s reply: Wheatley to Roderick Random Esq., 15 January 1935. Two page typed letter. Archive.
Wheatley on Rome D&I 135–36; more on Mussolini, Mediterranean Nights p.73.
‘Mussolini: What Europe owes to him.’ Sunday Pictorial 16 September 1923.
“… your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.” Churchill to Mussolini, quoted Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right, pp.14–15
“a nice Napoleon …” J.C.Squire cited Griffiths p.24
Sir Noel Charles, Hoyo de Monterreys and dance in the hall, D&I p.136
Wheatley on Cheney: named Leper D&I 145, “fun” D&I 201
“I knew Tayleur to be in sympathy with the Fascists …” D&I 166
“blithering ineptitude” etc. Tayleur to Wheatley, 3 December 1939. Archive
“… could never come within reach of a pencil and paper without drawing a coronated Devil’s head.” M15 (Guy Liddell) on Joyce, Public Record Office, Joyce file KV2 / 245
“from Mephistopheles to Faust” Dietze to Joyce PRO KV2 / 253
William Joyce on Goering as Wheatley fan D&I 166
“wittiest man I know” Wheatley on Golding, Sunday Graphic column 26 February 1939
“an essentially magical doctrine,” cited in DJ Taylor, Orwell p.199.
“Author”. Paternoster Club card index on Maxwell Knight. Archive.
“… where I can still keep an eye (or even two) on any undesirables …” Maxwell Knight in The British Lion, December 1927, reproduced in Lobster June 1993
“… espionage … occult … clandestine sexual leanings.” Joan Miller, One Girl’s War p.120
“And every propeller is whirring “Red Front” …” J.M.Richards, Memoirs of an Unjust Fella (Weidenfeld, 1980) p.119
“unmasking the cult of evil of which Aleister Crowley, alias the Beast, was the centre.” John Baker White, True Blue: An Autobiography 1902–1939 (Muller, 1970) pp.129–30. White was a director of the Economic League.
“occult ceremonies”; “novices … pupils” Anthony Masters, The Man Who Was M (Grafton, 1986) p.90
“If you are going to tell a lie, tell a good one and stick to it.” Joan Miller, One Girl’s War p.34
“Mr Dennis Wheatley is a past-master …” Morning Post, 23 July 1935
“… intensity which the sunshine lacked.” Beebe Half Mile Down p.111
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: LIKE SPITTING ON AN ALTAR
“Crime Club”; “shilling shocker”: Wyndham Lewis in Left Wings Over Europe, cited Valentine Cunningham, British Writers of the Thirties p.74
“Why can’t we just have the facts and the clues?” J.G.Links obituary, Times 11 Oct 1997
Times Fourth Leader (‘Three Dimensional Fiction’) 24 July 1936
Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral: Anthony Wheatley
Rupert Croft-Cooke on Peter Cheyney: The Sound of Revelry pp.136–37
“its moral character must be designated more than inferior …” cited Reg Gadney, ‘The Murder Dossiers of Dennis Wheatley and J.G.Links’, London Magazine March 1969 p.48.
Wheatley to Edward VIII: sold at auction by Trevor Vennet-Smith, Nottingham, February 1995, reported in Telegraph 5 January 1995 p.19
“Elspeth Bungle … when we only knew the GOOD side of Hitler!” Angus Wilson, For Whom the Cloche Tolls (Penguin, 1976) p.44
“We weren’t all pro-Abyssinian.” Inscription in The Secret War, offered for sale by David Bailey Books, London January 2005.
“Budapest … civilised mentality” D&I p.146
‘We Don’t Eat Enough at Christmas!’ Daily Mail 17 December 1937
“… absolutely in the clutches of the capitalist.” ‘Voroshilov and his Campaigns’ by Dennis Wheatley, The Lecture Recorder June 1938 p.315
“Bino and Lou say I am the grandest drunk they have ever met …”. Quotes attributed to Diana from Wheatley’s diary-letter ‘All I Knew Of What Was Going On’. No material directly from Diana seems to have survived in Wheatley’s archive.
“… doctors fear complete breakdown …” DW telegram to Cecily Jeppe. Archive.
“… tragic that I should have left under a cloud …” draft letter for Diana to copy. Archive.
“Lou ought to be in an asylum …” ‘All I Knew of What Was Going On.’ Archive.
“… naked …”; “… Goat …”; “… like spitting on an altar …” ‘All I Knew of What Was Going On’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: THE MYSTERY OF THE BLACK BOX
“definite sense of evil” D&I p.150
“filthy Arab guide”TDAAHW p.125
‘Athenian Gold’, Mediterranean Nights pp.156–65; “more than usually unlikely”, introduction p.154.
Franco, “my vote every time” D&I p.166
Churchill on Spain: ‘The Spanish Tragedy’ Evening Standard 10 August 1936, reprinted in Step by Step (Macmillan, 1942) pp.50–51.
“… Duke would be in sympathy with the Spanish Monarchists …” Mediterranean Nights p. 132
“… the specialite de la maison …” Ralph Partridge on The Golden Spaniard, New Statesman, 8 October 1938 p.540
‘Cookery for Sadists’ New Statesman 3 December 1938 p.934
Julian Symons on Peter Cheyney: Bloody Murder (Penguin, 1974) p.215
Wheatley on Winged Pharaoh, “… things of the spirit … an inner message …” Current Literature December 1938; “… any sacred book of East or West,” Introduction to Winged Pharaoh (Sphere, The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult, 1974) p.6; “… You believe in Winged Pharaoh … You won’t get such a good deal next time …” Wheatley letter to Diana, 29 October 1939. Archive
“the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children …” Winged Pharaoh, Introduction p.5
Joan Grant’s Aleister Crowley story: Time Out of Mind (London, Arthur Barker, 1956) pp.42–44
‘The Ceremony of the Roses’ D&I p.216
Barbara Cartland “Lying on her sofa in a darkened room …” John Pearson, ‘Remembering Barbara’ The Author Winter 2001 p.178.
“… only one living saint – Charles Beatty.” DW Introduction to Charles Beatty, Gate of Dreams (Geoffrey Chapman, 1972) p.xv.
“ruined the natural psychic link …” D&I p.216
Beatty besieged: D&I p.153.
“… earnest appeal not to dabble …” Eton Chronicle no.2405, 23 February 1939
“Silly of you, Dennis … Waste of a pound.” Driberg quoted in Wheatley’s Sunday Graphic column 26 February 1939
‘Crime as a Science’, Edinburgh Evening Despatch
“… Hitler’s ideal girl …” Sunday Graphic 26 February 1939
“… greatest force for good or ill in the world today is Propaganda.” Wheatley on Bernard Newman, Current Literature July 1939. Cited from draft; Archive.
“… as no country ever makes anything out of a war, the contents of the pool should go into a charity box.” Invasion [game] (Hutchinson’s / Geographia, 1938) p.9, bold print in original.
Wheatley on Sir John Simon, Sunday Graphic 29 January 1939
“… fine dynamic painting of the famous 3.7 anti-aircraft gun …” Sunday Graphic 26 March 1939
“… start hoarding …” Sunday Graphic 22 January 1939
Ermintrude Wraxwell, D&I pp.155–56.
“… anxious to have unofficial tips …” Sunday Graphic 12 March 1939
“I do not suggest … extremist parties should be suppressed …” Wheatley speech, ‘The Great Danger’; manuscript of c.4,000 words. Collection of Richard Humphreys.
“characteristically democratic men with dirty hands and small heads …” Edward Pease c.1880, cited in Fiona McCarthy, William Morris (Faber, 1994) p.466
“excellent book for war time.” TLS review of Sixty Days to Live
“Witness the anguish of Fred W. Fischer …” C.S. Youd, ‘Words and Music: Being the Mental Vagaries of a Britisher’ Sardonyx [American fanzine] Vol.1 no.3 [1941]
“… all the different skin colours we’ve got down here”; “I haven’t been down there myself …”; “… remained adamant …” Daily Telegraph Fifth Book of Obituaries pp.292–93
“… the simple courtesy with which he defended them.” John Michell, Fortean Times 83 (Oct–Nov 1995) p.47
“Uncle has taken a turn for the worse and, if you wish to see him before the end, you should return home at once.” STF p.17
“large black box, roped and sealed” Receipt from National Provincial Bank Ltd. South Audley Street, 4 May 1937. Archive.
“… self-supporting until the Government had got things under control.” D&I p.161
CHAPTER THIRTY: DEATH OF A FIFTH COLUMNIST
“… proper dress for any gentleman when Britain is at war” D&I p.160
“… wouldn’t have me as a gift” Garrick speech, 1964
“… raising a laugh among a few other stupid girls …” to “… what’s happening to Czech and Polish girls” DW letter to Diana, 29 October 1939. Archive
Diana parachuted into France, possibly: D&I p.162
“… sound him out very gently …” Max Knight note to Wheatley, undated. Archive.
“pompous, conceited little creature”; “… romantic streak common to all Celts …” Max Knight on Joyce cited Peter Martland, Lord Haw Haw (National Archives, 2003) pp.120–21
“… evidence testifying to the couple’s abject poverty.” Op.cit. p.28
“Oh yes you do … He was at one of your parties.” D&I p.166. File on Wheatley story, D&I p.167.
Herewith the Clues and MI5 story D&I p.177
“… so we had a good laugh over it.” D&I p.167
“… more or less throwing her party for MI5”. D&I p.173
We don’t want to fight, but by Jingo if we do … D&I p.176
“… Phew!” Daily Mail 19 January 1940
“… Major-General Victor Fortune …” Daily Mail 19 November 1940
“more Gregory” D&I p.183
“… furiously fascistic books (in nice tweedy covers)”. Frederic Raphael, A Spoilt Boy (Orion, 2003) p.53
“… under the aegis of Victor Gollancz.” D&I p.169
Paul Dukes: Peter Underwood, The Ghost Hunters (Robert Hale, 1985) p.129
Fifth Column broadcast: all quotation, from “with a view to putting the fear of God …” to “… safety in time of war” from ‘Suggestions by Dennis Wheatley for a BBC Broadcast on the Fifth Column as a Postscript to the News’. Manuscript in collection of Richard Humpreys.
‘The Man With The Girlish Face:’ six stories in the Daily Sketch, March – June 1940, reprinted in Mediterranean Nights
Captain Ramsay’s “Red Book”: Wiener Library, London: 1369/1 acc.no.70955. “Le P Trench B” p.2. It is just possible he was infiltrating on behalf of Maxwell Knight.
“… rather his cup of tea.” ‘Wheatley’s 19 war thrillers were TOP SECRET!’ interview with Kenneth Allsopp. Clipping identified by Wheatley as “The Daily Mail, Nov.1957” Archive.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: STRANGE CONFLICT
“… a rabble, which had to be taken off in its shirts.” ‘Dunkirk’ from the confidential version of ‘Total War’; unpublished manuscript in the collection of Richard Humphreys.
“highly successful fuck-up”; Bombardier Kean talking to a young Gunner Milligan in Spike Milligan, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall (Penguin, 1972) p.33.
‘Resistance to Invasion’ reproduced in STF pp.17–37. All quotes from this version.
“… a lot of inconvenience and all for no purpose.” Wheatley interviewed in the Guardian, 12 January 1977.
“delicate, charming man and a real patriot” D&I p.185
‘The Invasion and Conquest of Britain’ STF pp.38–71.
“… looking pretty closely at the Nazis for quite a while!” Felix Barker, The War Secrets of Dennis Wheatley, second instalment, Evening News 3 February 1959.
“… but Wheatley thinks like a Nazi.” My collation of variants on this quote including STF p.74; Garrick speech; ‘The Man Who Can’t Help Hitting the Jackpot’ interview in Daily Mail 30 August 1966; D&I p.190
“… Britain and France rudely declined … Germany’s peace proposals …” Stalin in Pravda 29 October 1939, cited Lashmar p.185
‘Further Measures for Resistance to Invasion’ STF pp.72–74
‘Village Defence’ STF pp.78–92
“… it was that sort of emotional touch which meant so much then …” ‘This Was My War’, Wheatley interviewed in Reynolds News, 25 January 1959
“… we are the champions of Light facing the creeping tide of Darkness which threatens to engulf the world.” STF p.92
“… M’s extra-sensory perception … projecting one’s astral body …” Joan Miller, One Girl’s War pp.114–15
“… it carries the message that death is not to be feared …” Wheatley on Joan Grant, draft piece for Current Literature, winter 1939. Archive.
“everybody is worried about the feeling in the East End, where there is much bitterness.” Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters 1939–1945 (Collins, 1967) p.114 [17 September 1940]
INRI ADAM … “astral fortress” in Strange Conflict Chapter Four, compare de Givry pp.109; 111
Sardinia plans: ‘A New Gibraltar’ STF pp.110–130; ‘The Key to Victory’ STF pp.151–61; ‘While the Cat’s Away’ STF pp.182–203.
“I still maintain …” Wheatley to Felix Barker, ‘The War Secrets of Dennis Wheatley’ part 4, Evening News, 6 February 1959
“… long slog up the leg of Italy need never have taken place …” Air Marshal Sir Lawrance Darvall, introduction to STF p.13
“150,000,000 Mohammedans are waiting for ‘the word’ …” Total War (Hutchinson, 1941) p.31.
Julius Streicher, ‘Madagascar’ Der Sturmer no.1, 1938
Germans should be sterilised: “undoubtedly the one practical way of dealing with the mad dog of Europe” ‘After The Battle’ STF pp.283ff
Total War as “civil war”: TW p.16
“… decisive sphere of Total War is the Mental Sphere” TW p.18
“… not Armed Force, but propaganda.” Ibid.
Armed force as “the backing for propaganda” TW p.21
“science of influencing ideas” TW p.19
“loses its value if it is recognised as propaganda” ibid.
“If Mr Wheatley had his way …” TLS review of Total War, 10 January 1942
“Expediency, not morality, is the sole criterion …” in both versions of Total War, e.g. published version p.17.
“… if it were calculated that the sinking of a neutral ship …” and “… steps should be taken for [de Valera’s] elimination.” From the confidential version of Total War; Wheatley typescript in possession of Richard Humphreys.
“… select readership of four – King George VI and the Chiefs of Staff.” ‘The Man Who Can’t Help Hitting The Jackpot’ Daily Mail 30 August 1966
“my most precious souvenir of the war” D&I p.196
Churchill; “magnificent” D&I p.196
“strange adventures in wonderland” Wheatley inscription in Bobby Eastaugh’s copy of Stranger Than Fiction. Private collection, Hampshire.
“boyish, Biggles-like optimism” Spectator review of STF, 6 February 1959.
“… small hard bench in the draughtiest room of the Joint Planning Staff.” STF p.181
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: IN THE STRATOSPHERE
“strategic stratosphere” D&I p.225
“… stories of the poor boy who becomes a millionaire are innumerable …” Wheatley’s draft note, ‘Dennis Wheatley’s War Papers Proposal,’ to pitch Stranger Than Fiction to Hutchinson. Private collection, Hampshire.
“… not to slap Air Marshals on the back …”; “… two schoolboys …”; “… delightful friendship …” Wheatley’s speech, Garrick dinner 1964. Archive.
“uncanny habit of suddenly appearing in a room …” DP p.20
“… Father of Deception” DP p.19
“cloak-and-dagger”; “… everyone involved in any secret activity …”; “… a good invitation” Garrick speech
“Chanel No.5” DP p.30
‘Deception on the Highest Plane’ DP p.50
“when things were looking pretty bad for his side at cricket …” DP p.58
“The news of our early successes in North Africa is most gratifying. …” Churchill cited by Wheatley in draft letter to the Sunday Times [1957]. Archive. Published version omits a final dig at Alanbrooke.
“souvenired” Churchill ashtray; mentioned in Wheatley’s major but later superceded will of September 1971
“gayest of all my friends” will of 1971
“… a happy band of brothers” Garrick speech
“Spirits are a very poor return for wine …” William Elliott to Wheatley, 23 December 1942. Archive.
“Joan will, I know, love it …” Wheatley to William Elliott 26 December 1942. Archive.
“bigger boys” Wheatley interviewed by John Ellison on ‘Home This Afternoon,’ Home Service 8 December 1966
“… if you happen to have a day free to lunch with me?” D&I p.62
“… Eating for Victory” Garrick speech
“Few people can be happy unless they hate …” Russell cited in Scorn, ed. Matthew Parris (Hamish Hamilton, 1994) p.67
“Dennis, where are the girls?” DP p.129
Denis Capel-Dunn (Widmerpool) DP pp.127–28
“unique,” “decisive” Maj-Gen L.C. Hollis, Deputy Chief Staff Officer to the Prime Minister, Minute OS1716(4), reproduced DP p.221
“CBs or, at least, CBEs” DP p.222
“meritorious service to the US army …”. Bronze Star citation. Archive.
“No one will want to read all this nonsense about the sort of people we are”; “enthusiasm” Bevan to Wheatley cited DP 228; 227.
“great crusade which was to bring light back to Europe”; “a very special bottle of wine” from ‘The Opening of the Battle of the Century.’ Archive. A later but still unpublished draft surfaced in a chest in 2004, given by Wheatley to an RAF friend (Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press 8 April 2004). It is adapted as Chapter 18 of DP, pp.196–209.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: GROVE PLACE
“picturesque” D&I p.233
“… but we are now well on the way to victory.” Letter to Mr Downing, 3 January 1946. Richard Humphreys.
“Death to the invaders!” Annette Wheatley
“… I will do my best before you are invaded”. Letter from an earl, 24 January 1949. Archive. From here on I have anonymised many of Wheatley’s minor post-war correspondents.
Blackmailer: “… I’ll have you in the jug” D&I p.234
“Asking for Hunting Kummel and Aurum seems like a breath from the past” Letter from woman at Maurice Meyer Ltd, 7 June 1946. Archive.
Letter re Christopher Lee, 24 December 1946. Archive.
“… couldn’t go and stay while he was working.” Annette Wheatley.
“work in the afternoon …” D&I p.250
“in purdah”; letter to Joan re Wheatley from Lymington woman friend, 8 July 1968. Archive.
“… if discovered she would be torn to pieces”. D&I p.244
“… your most wonderful luncheon of yesterday. .” Earl to Wheatley, 28 April 1949. “… that delectable hock.” Same correspondent, 9 May 1948.
Further social medley of letters largely from 1950s; latest 1961. Archive.
Francois Truchaud on the “the autonomous life of novelistic characters” in ‘Vous avez dit Zombie?’ introduction to Etrange Conflit (Paris, Editions Neo, 1987) p.8; my translation.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: ROGERING ROGER
“And this is Roger Brook …” ‘Living Portrait’ film of Wheatley (1968)
“… can’t roger that many women, even in your youth.” ‘That old Black Magic’ Observer 4 July 1971
“… like an infant gurgling in his play pen”. George Macdonald Fraser, Glasgow Herald, widely quoted on later books e.g. The Irish Witch
“Talleyrand, tell me what’s been happening”; Anthony Lejeune, Foreword to The Scarlet Impostor (Hutchinson, 1988 edn.)
Bayley, George’s Lair pp.16–17
“invaluable” Blackwell’s item 572
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: THE MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
“Botticelli” D&I p.235
‘A Letter to Posterity from Dennis Wheatley’; manuscript of approximately 3400 words. Collection of Richard Humphreys. All further quotation from this document.
Diana Eldredge on little simple people: ‘To the finder of this note’ 5 July 1947
“We’ll all end in a concentration camp” Harold Acton, More Memoirs of an Aesthete p.314
“… when your villa and garden are handed over to the proletariat!” op.cit p.293
“… long sleeves protect one’s arms …” SWB p.29
“No, it’s you!” O&TG p.65
“… now frequently produced by experts” SWB p.11
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: AN INTERNATIONAL SPIDER
“I had heard about a school in Devonshire …” D&I p.164
Toby jug on desk at Grove Place: visible in photograph accompanying a feature on Wheatley in Hampshire Countryside Vol.2 no.4 (April–June 1950)
“… this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation …” Churchill, ‘Zionism versus Bolshevism,’ Illustrated Sunday Herald 8 February 1920.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: INTO THE CAVE OF BATS
Woman’s letter about Black Mass at Brighton: GGG p.246
Waldron Smithers’s letters 9 January and 28 January 1949. Archive.
Wheatley’s draft reply to Smithers, 23 January 1949. Archive.
“… drugs, alcohol, sexual orgies or Black Mass” Kim Philby, ‘The Philby Reports’ Appendix II of Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, The Crown Jewels p.317.
My Secret Service by “The Man Who Dined With The Kaiser”, Blackwell’s item 1493.
Wheatley and Kurt Hahn: D&I pp.252–3
“Wherever the Phoenicians went …” TDAAHW p.151
“… I do not doubt he would have obliged me.” TDAAHW p.151
“… second quarter of the twentieth century”, J.Randolph Cox, ‘Dennis Yates Wheatley’ Dictionary of Literary Biography vol.77 (Gale, 1988) p.322.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: EASTERN ASSIGNMENT
Aside from Wheatley’s draft of his otherwise unseen Islamic novel, this chapter draws on Foreign Office files at the Public Record Office, Kew, cited in the format of e.g. FO 1110 / 383
“a cloak-and-dagger chap with whom I had numerous friendly dealings” D&I p.258
“… acts of violence, mayhem and murder.” Jack Beevor, Assistant to Sir Charles Hambro (head of S.O.E) cited p.7 of West, Secret War: The Story of S.O.E.
“Starting in the Balkans …” Paul Lashmar, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War (Stroud, Sutton, 1998) p.12
“… the name of this department is intended as a disguise …” FO 1110 / 383
“… about time they got the record right.” Celia Kirwan cited Lashmar p.96
‘The Life Giving Principles of Islam are a Sound Basis for a New Pattern of Life.’ FO 1110 / 413
“earthy press of Persia”. FO 1110 / 337
Mein Kampf, ‘Minutes of a Meeting of Information Officers, Baghdad 25–28.3.48’ FO 1110 / 8
“… staple diet of the half-educated effendi.” 18 February 1950 – FO 1110 / 316
“… re-written in Arabic by local hacks …”. 20 March 1950 – FO 1110 / 316
“… at that level of pornography.” 20 June 1950 – FO 1110 / 316
Catalogued as ‘Islam’ in Wheatley’s own 1964 typescript catalogue of his books. Archive.
“… I do not quite believe in Islam becoming a back number.” John Buchan, Greenmantle, in The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay (Hodder and Stoughton, 1930) [ch.1] p.138
‘NOVEL FOR THE MIDDLE EAST’ two sheets of anonymous instructions, from a typewriter other than Wheatley’s, bound into the front of his own manuscript book. Quotes from “a beautiful Islamic girl” to “see people going into the bedrooms, but should not follow them in” from these instructions. All quotation of Wheatley’s novel, from “… in the full flower of her beauty” to “… ALL WOMEN PROPERTY OF OFFICIALS UNDER COMMUNISM” from the manuscript. This leatherbound manuscript was later owned by Sir John Paul Getty and is now in the Wormsley Library.
Published in Beirut in 1953 as Ayesha: Sheridan letter to Wheatley 17 February 1954.
A greenhouse too far: Tayleur to Wheatley 6 June 1956
“… use of Secret Funds was fully justified, and these would be tax free”. D&I p.259
“… cannot allow any particulars about it to be printed.” Wheatley to Iwan Hedman 17 April 1972. Sold at Sotheby’s 8 July 2004 Lot 257.
“communism is only a cloak for the most sinister imperialism the world has ever seen”, FO 1110 / 327
“Don’t back reaction” FO 1110 / 327
“ ‘We have one foreign policy, IRD has another.’ ” ‘Revival of Political Warfare’ Peter Hennessy, Times March 1st 1983 p.4
“Is not Dr.Goebbels a magician?” JFC Fuller, ‘The Attack by Magic’, The Occult Review Vol.LXIX no.4 October 1942.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: CLUBLAND HEROES
“… not so generally awarded as it is to-day.” Summers, The Galanty Show, p.176
“… Mr Wheatley needs no recommendation …” Gilbert Frankau to RSL (“Gentlemen,”), 24 March 1950. RSL Archives, henceforth ‘RSL’.
“… such very good friends …” Frankau to Miss Rudston Brown 12 Novemember 1950. RSL
“… helping of giant caviar.” Douglas Sutherland, The English Gentleman (Debretts, 1978) p.14
“… giving me lunch at Boodle’s …” Wheatley to Picton Bagge 17 January 1939. Archive.
“… and numerous thrillers” Candidate form for Wheatley, filled in by Frankau 6 December 1950. RSL.
“… nor will anyone’s feelings be hurt.” Secretary of RSL to Frankau 12 december 1950. RSL.
“… worked himself to death.” Letter to Wheatley from friend, Alan. February 1952. Archive.
“… and other historical adventure novels”. Undated proposal from Lord Birkenhead and Eric Gillett. Approved 4 March 1954. RSL.
“… the great honour they have done me.” Wheatley to Mrs J.M. Patterson 11 March 1954. RSL.
“I really will present myself …” Wheatley to Mrs J.M.Patterson 25 June 1954. RSL.
“… and he did not often come to meetings.” Mrs J.M.Patterson to Mary Lutyens 31 March 1978. RSL
CHAPTER FORTY: TO THE DEVIL – A DAUGHTER
Gerald Heard, The Riddle of the Flying Saucers: “Used by me for my book Star of Ill-Omen” Blackwell’s item 919.
“… whether a writer has produced literature of value” ‘Mr Wheatley Keeps the Werewolf from the Door’ Philip Oakes, Evening Standard, 11 October 1956
“… wring the factory girl’s heart.” ‘The Novelist’s Task’ lecture delivered 27 April 1953, reproduced in Journal of the Royal Society of Arts no 4908, 18 September 1953 pp.761–770. All further quotation of lecture from this source.
“what is now called dissociated personality … demonic possession” James Atherton, The Books At the Wake (Faber, 1959) p.41
A woman at a party: writer in her mid-forties, Times Literary Supplement party 2005.
“I’d read and reread Dennis Wheatley’s To The Devil A Daughter …” Lorna Sage, Bad Blood (Fourth Estate, 2000) pp.239–40.
“Under this antic [antique] cope I move …” Marvell, ‘Upon Appleton House’, stanza 74.
Somerset Maugham, The Magician (Heinemann, 1908) Chapter Seven, pp.113–14; compare To The Devil – A Daughter (Hutchinson, 1953) Chapter Fifteen, p.221.
“a spice of wickedness that particularly appealed to adolescents” David Langford, Dennis (Yeats) Wheatley’ in The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy, ed. John Clute and John Grant
“… Wheatley could always make me lively around the groin.” John Sutherland, ‘Bibliofile’ Sunday Times 7 March 1999 p.11
“… Wheatley’s satanic stuff very exciting.” Matthew Parris, ‘Bibliofile’ Sunday Times 27 September 1998 p.11
“… PS Lynne said it was good …” – Wheatley at the very tail end of his popularity with adolescent girls, in an Arrow copy from 1981.
“Wheatley actually did the occult a great disservice …” Letter to present writer from Tim D’Arch Smith
1949 book dedication to Mother: in The Rising Storm
“… not turned the clock back a single second.” This semi-apocryphal quote seems to be based on “The Conservative Party have never put the clock back a single second,” in Frances Donaldson, Evelyn Waugh: Portrait of a Country Neighbour (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967) p.15.
“… the English proletariat has taken over …” Letter from friend 10 March 1972. Archive.
“… what really appreciates a bit of good fish” D&I p.256, spelling normalised.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: SIR GIFFORD COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD
Letter to Wheatley from Audrey in Paris, 3 May 1935, refers back to his recommendations re Louvre and Prunier’s. Archive.
“Believing me to be poor they will tell me their troubles freely …” Unpublished ending to The Ka Of Gifford Hillary. Collection of Richard Humphreys.
Oxford Union Debate 17 November 1955, ‘That Equality is in Theory a Pestilential Heresy and in Practice a Pitiful Illusion.’ Written up in Isis 23 November 1955 by Trevor Lloyd and Cherwell 22 November 1955 by Nick Hudson.
Wheatley on modern democracy: see e.g. D&I pp.254–55; Guardian interview 12 January 1977, ‘That Satan Feeling.’ Disraeli in Guardian, Shute in D&I.
“… popular assemblies – parliaments & all inventions of Satan.” Wheatley’s annotation to his copy of Hobhouse, The Substance of Some Letters, written by an Englishman resident at Paris […] (Ridgways, 1816). Blackwell’s item 977.
“… tear up the seats of railway carriages.” D&I 254
“Hypodermic follows”; confectionery; Joan. Annette Wheatley.
“… he’s a better man than I am, Gunga Din!” Wheatley’s Garrick speech, 1964.
‘ “English,” said Frankau.’ The Selective Ego: The Diaries of James Agate ed Tim Beaumont (Harrap, 1976) 10 April 1938 p.105
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: THE BEST REVENGE
“… you can call me a success.” To Philip Oakes, Evening Standard 11 October 1958.
“… If the highbrow critics don’t like the way it’s put …” The Listener, 13 January 1977
“This is the way to live …” Evening Standard 11 October 1958
Wheatley’s personal effects: I have drawn this list from Wheatley’s extraordinarily detailed will of 13 June 1971, later superceded.
“… a collector, obsessive, comprehensive, boyish.” Profile by Pooter in the Times Saturday Review 9 August 1969.
“… Wells, Kipling, Huxley, Dreiser …” Wheatley to Martin Fox, Daily Mail 30 August 1966
“… catalogue value £715.” Philip Oakes, Evening Standard 11 October 1958
“rolled gold fountain pen that lights up” Will of 13 June 1971, left to Marqis of Donegall in clause 14.qqq.ii.
“Bright as a rainbow trout”, Kenneth Allsopp, ‘Wheatley’s 19 war thrillers were TOP SECRET!’ Clipping identified by Wheatley as ‘The Daily Mail, Nov.1957” Archive.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: NICE WORK
“… one of those green-glass and deep-carpet wine merchants in Bond St” Account of party principally from ‘In London Last Night’ Evening Standard 30 January 1959; ‘Wheatley goes gay’ Daily Express 30 January 1959; Daily Sketch 30 January 1959; The Wine and Spirit Trade Review 6 February 1959. All scrapbooked by Wheatley. Archive.
“… just about suits it” Eastaugh to Wheatley on the clothes he would have to wear, 1 January 1959. Archive.
“… a bit foolish” Sunday Despatch 8 February 1959
“Thank you for the party” Eddie Tatham to Wheatley. Archive.
“… first let me fill up your glass …” Wheatley to Felix Barker, Evening News, interview feature to open Stranger Than Fiction serialisation 2 February 1959.
“… a man steeped in espionage”; “I was gassed …” ‘This Was My War’ interview with Paul Doncaster, Reynolds News 25 January 1959
“The wildness of Mr Wheatley’s ideas …” Ewen Montagu in the Jewish Chronicle 23 January 1959
“… poor Ewan!” Wheatley typed note in scrapbook. Archive.
Correspondence with Graucob March – July 1959 and manuscript ‘Report on the Nu-Swift Organisation.’ Archive.
1959 draft proposal for Dennis Wheatley Ltd., and accompanying correspondence to Robert Lusty. Archive.
“… a few weeks in the Adriatic.” Letter to Wheatley from Dennis Wheatley Ltd., 18 May 1962. Archive.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: THE SATANIST
Sunday Pictorial 28 October 1951; 7 November 1954. Cited and discussed in Gareth Medway Lure of the Sinister (New York University Press, 2001) pp.143–49.
Robert Fabian, London After Dark (The Naldrett Press, 1954) pp.75–6
“Pentagrams and sigils …” ibid.
“… throbbing with jungle drums and chants.” Op.cit p.77
Sunday Pictorial 22 May 1955; 29 May 1955; 5 June 1955. “… everything decent in life was mocked” cited Medway, Lure of the Sinister p.145
‘Peers on Yard Black Magic List’ … “The list reads like pages taken from Debrett! …” Reynolds News 3 June 1956, cited Medway p.152
Wheatley’s Sunday Graphic series ran 3 – 24 June 1956. It is published in its unabridged, unedited form in the six instalments Wheatley originally intended in GGG [1963 edition] pp.233–257. All quotation from this version.
“I’m all right, Jack!”; “… boiling resentment …” John Calder, Pursuit (Calder, 2002) p.148
Byrne and Haxell, Lashmar pp.111–12
“Satanic beanfeast”: Wheatley on the Black Mass in his Sunday Graphic pieces, GGG [1963] p.247.
The Satanist toned down for the published version: comparison with earlier manuscript in possession of Richard Humphreys.
“several hundred pounds” D&I p.258
“Dear Miss Walker …”. Letter from Wheatley to fan, 13 May 1963. Possession of present writer.
“… after reading these pages, the most rational could no longer doubt.” Wheatley’s annotation to Blackwell’s item 634.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: THE REICH REVISITED, AND THE DEATH OF THE DUKE
“Membership of the group entitles the member to about five thousand friends. …” Quentin Crewe, ‘The First Social Survey of the British Upper Classes’ ( June 1961) reprinted in The Sixties in Queen ed. Nicholas Coleridge and Stephen Quinn (Ebury, 1987) p.72
“… hard work being entertained straight off the plane by ambassadors and tycoons.” Pooter profile, Times Saturday Review 9 August 1969
“… British. His hazel eyes moisten at the compliment.” Pooter op.cit.
“he used dark forces.” Air Marshal Dowding to Michael Bentine, recounted Bentine, Doors of the Mind (Granada, 1984) p.91.
“graciousness itself” Christopher Lee. ‘Foreword’ to The Devil Rides Out (Century, 1988 edn.)
“… could have been postdated … but one wonders.” Brocard Sewell, Like Black Swans p.169.
“… tried to make the inscriptions as varied as possible.” Wheatley to Harold Mortlake, 4 February 1957. Offered for sale on the internet November 2002.
‘Contents of Library as at 24th May, 1964.’ Typed 84pp foolscap document. Archive.
Draft of Garrick Speech (delivered 20th November 1964). Archive.
Garrick party menu. Archive.
Queen ‘In’ and ‘Out’ list; ‘Society: The Index’ (June, 1965) in The Sixties in Queen ed. Nicholas Coleridge and Stephen Quinn (Ebury, 1987) p.128
Giles Gordon and Wheatley, from “middle-brow mediocrity of Hutchinson” to “in spite of my best efforts Dennis Wheatley continued to prosper.” Aren’t We Due A Royalty Statement? (Chatto, 1993) pp.39–43
“… an ageing Flash Harry …” Nigel Fountain
“… a publican who’d been hitting his own stock” Michael Horniman
Drinking Man’s Diet; recommended by Wheatley to friend, Victor Saville, who writes to thank him 17 April, no year given [c.1965]. Archive.
“It is really heart-breaking …” Letter from an agent or marketing man. 5 November 1965. Archive.
Anthony Powell on Biggles and Wheatley: Journals 1982–1986 (Heinemann, 1995) p.268
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: LUCIFER RISING
“It was a wonderful trip …” Letter to Hedman, 14 March 1966.
“I bring back a mass of material … Can’t get it out of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.” Pooter profile.
Voodoo ceremony D&I pp.245–47. “… jumble sale. …” TDAAHW p.277; “… vilest, cruelest …” TDAAHW p.276; “Few people can be so bestial …” TDAAHW p.277; “In extenuation of normal voodoo ceremonies …” TDAAHW p.278
“I was suddenly seized with such a sense of evil … [at Teotihucan] …” TDAAHW p.124
“… It is achieved by white magic.” TDAAHW p.261
“Give him the smallest you’ve got.” Gollancz cited in Aren’t We Due A Royalty Statement? pp.97–8.
“rabid”; “vitriol”; “but I did not” etc. Hilary Rubinstein
Writers Take Sides on Vietnam, ed Cecil Woolf and John Bagguley (Peter Owen, 1967) Wheatley p.139
“wonderful Persian art” letter to Hedman 21 April 1967.
Semisi Maya business details principally from undated [1967] two page letter draft to Phyllis Jakeway, who was acting as intermediary between Wheatley and Maya.
“… who believes passionately in all the ‘freedoms’ including that of sex.” Blurb of Dangerous Inheritance.
Reading The Satanist and hearing Sharon Tate had been murdered: Richard Humphreys.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: THE DEVIL REDUX
“bourgeois splendour” versus “decay and death”: David Pirie, A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946–1972 (Gordon Fraser, 1973) p.51.
“… Evil is vanquished and Good triumphs.” Christopher Lee, introduction to The Devil Rides Out (Century, 1988 edn.)
“… mythical luminosity … distinctly other-worldly.” Graham Skeggs, ‘Wheatley and Hammer’, formerly on the Net.
“… congratulations, grateful thanks for splendid direction.” Little Shoppe of Horrors [Hammer fanzine] no.12, 1994 p.53
“It’s a ritual against the forces of darkness, it really exists.” Lee on the Sussamma ritual to Bill Kelley, Little Shoppe of Horrors no.12 p.45. Lee also talks of his research in the British Museum Library in contemporary interviews and in his autobiography, Tall, Dark and Gruesome. What he or someone does seem to have found are the words “Galatim Galata” which are in the film but not the Richard Matheson screenplay. They are cited in Grillot de Givry’s Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy, a Wheatley staple, p.113.
“Satanism is rampant in London today … just ask the police …” Christopher Lee in 1968 interview, cited Nicholas Schreck, The Satanic Screen (Creation Books, 2001) p.130.
“Here’s a health to you all” … “here’s to it.” ‘Living Portrait’, eighteen page typed filmscript by Wheatley. Archive. The finished film is significantly different and is in possession of the Wheatley family.
“… more cheerful atmosphere at the Show …” Geoffrey Le Dieu to Wheatley 15 August 1968. Archive.
“perfect example of a small Georgian Manor House.” D&I 263
Leaving doors and windows open. Annette Wheatley.
“… attributable to the revealed adultery rather than to any horror of miscegenation”. Christopher Bentley, ‘Fifty Million Copies: The Fiction of Dennis Wheatley’, in Bloom (ed.), Twentieth Century Suspense p.151
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: RIVERS OF BLOOD
Draft letter to unnamed Hammer executive, possibly Michael Carreras (undated, 1968). Archive.
“… England, the home of witches and black masses.” Flyer from Ballantine publishers, n.d. Author’s collection.
“Dennis Wheatley’s novels … the essential primer in diabolism …” Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford University Press, 1999) p.268
‘Jackie swots for black magic O level’ Daily Mail, 12 March 1969.
“Wheatley has been grappling with the Devil for over thirty years now …” David Blundy, ‘That Old Black Magic’, Observer 4 January 1971
Lecturing to clergymen: ‘Secret lesson in black magic for clergy’ Daily Express Friday 9 June 1972, also reported Daily Mirror 17 June 1967 (“Half the drug-pushing in Britain is done by people belonging to the nation’s 300 witchcraft covens”). Wheatley lectured to clergymen in Northampton at the request of the Bishop of Peterborough, his friend Bobby Eastaugh, who was announced to be appointing an exorcist for the diocese.
British Board of Film Censors: e.g. invitation from John Trevelyan to screening of unnamed witchcraft picture in company of Stephen Black and psychiatrist William Sargant. 21 November 169. Archive.
Simon Dee show: LWT 8 March 1970.
Programme with a clairvoyant, a palmist, a psychometrist, and an astrologer written up by Quentin Crewe, ‘Who Is The Man In the Mask?’ Sunday Mirror 1 February 1970.
“Having met Dennis Wheatley often on the Astral Plane …” Quentin Crewe, ‘Mr Wheatley is alive and kicking and nothing like Hughie Green’ Sunday Mirror 8 February 1970.
“I would certainly join Mr Wheatley in his wholesale condemnation …” Kordeiv, ‘Dangerous Ritual’ Man Myth and Magic no.31 [1970]
Wheatley and Rainbird: Anthony Lejeune.
‘Suddenly the Devil is the new thing’, Nina Bawden, Evening Standard 30 November 1971.
“… liable to end up in the asylum.” Wheatley in ‘Occultism: The Future’ Man Myth and Magic no.111 [1971]
“… taken on the cloak of the late Montague Summers.” ‘Dangerous Ritual’, Man Myth and Magic no.31 [1970].
“The Power of Darkness is now threatening to come out on top …” BBC radio interview with William Hardcastle 16 December 1971.
“… riots, wildcat strikes, anti-apartheid demonstrations and the appalling increase in crime …” TDAAHW p.290
“… fear … members of the Club would write to me.” Wheatley to Hedman 24 March 1968
Headman lunch, “… twenty four hours of darkness …”: tape recording courtesy of Iwan Hedman.
“utterly overwhelmed” 29 October 1970 to Hedman.
Wheatley’s will of June 1971: Archive. Not one of these things happened, because this will was superceded by a meaner instruction of 29 July 1977, possibly showing the more practical influence of Joan.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: THE MUSIC OF TIME
“lots of champagne” Wheatley to Hedman 8 January 1972.
Desert Island Discs 4 November 1972
‘The Secret Life of Dennis Wheatley’, Titbits 15–21 March 1973
“… but hope for better times in 1974”, Wheatley to Hedman 18 December 1973.
‘Members of Whites Who Are Friends of Dennis Wheatley’. Archive.
Teddy-bear coat and white Homburg: remembered by Lee in ‘Foreword’ to The Devil Rides Out (Century, 1988 edn.)
Anthony Powell “a fan” of Wheatley’s books: ‘He did, however, admit to being “a fan” of Wheatley,” Michael Barber, Anthony Powell: A Life (Duckworth, 2004) p.233. Powell denied Fenneau was modelled on Copely-Syle in a letter to Tim d’Arch Smith of 29 April 1988.
“from a fellow furnisher” Powell inscription in Books Do Furnish A Room, Blackwell’s item 1694
“eminently appropriate …” Powell inscription in Two Plays: The Garden God / The Rest I’ll Whistle, Blackwell’s item 1704
“I fear I rather trespass …” Powell inscription in Hearing Secret Harmonies, Blackwell’s item 1697
“Briefly, the situation is this …” Powell to Wheatley 21 January 1972, letter included with Books Do Furnish A Room, Blackwell’s item 1694.
“… relatively intelligent men who write more or less conscious drivel.” Powell, Journals 1982–1986 (Heinemann, 1995) 9 August 1986 p.261.
“… intelligent man … slightly modelled …” Powell, Journals 1982–1986 5 September 1986 p.268
Wheatley’s idea for a lottery: discussed and commended by friend and fellow member Douglas Cox; letter to Wheatley 26 September 1966. Archive.
Enjoyed Hell Fire portraits: mentioned by Wheatley in his introduction to Donald McCormick, The Hell-Fire Club (Sphere ‘Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult’, 1975)
“… oasis of civilisation in a desert of democracy” Percy Colson cited in Anthony Lejeune, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London (Macdonald and Jane’s, 1979) p.295
“… the Streatham born son of a shopkeeper.” Remembered by J.G.Links in his Foreword to the The Satanist (Century, 1988 edn)
“He pines, I think, to belong” Pooter profile, Times Saturday Review, 9 August 1969.
“… given his age and the fact that he was only a member for such a short time.” Merlin Holland.
“… great club of which all humanity must perforce become members.” Ralph Nevill, London Clubs: Their History and Treasures (Chatto, 1919) p.142.
CHAPTER FIFTY: THE HOUND OF HEAVEN
“Sea Bass Lymington” and Lockett’s party: ‘Goodbye Mr. Brook’ Evening Standard 3 September 1974]
“Mentally, she is as brisk as ever …” DW to Hedman, 27 May 1975
“Her Majesty has asked me to say that she is delighted to accept the book …” Queen’s Private Secretary to Wheatley, quoted to Hedman in letter of 18 December 1973
“… but mainly in dogs and horses …”; “. . writing beautiful English.” DW to Hedman 7 January 1974
“Please do not hesitate to address me by my Christian name …” DW to Hedman 27 February 1976
“… We’ve all read our Dennis Wheatley at some time or another …” Kyril Bonfiglioli, Something Nasty in the Woodshed, in The Mortdecai Trilogy p.450
“How nice to know that at least one reader fully understood me and what I stood for!” Hugo L’Estrange [Lionel Snell]. ‘The Hellgate Chronicles’ Aquarian Arrow no.9 (Autumn 1980)
“… the worst excesses of Dennis Wheatley are where it’s at.” Op.cit no.21 (Summer 1986)
Party at Brown’s Hotel: ‘An Author Who Met The Wickedest Man’, Evening News, 3 May 1974
“… upper-middle class writers like Dennis Wheatley …” James Herbert interviewed by Andrew Billen, Observer 14 February 1993.
Robert Robinson interview: The Listener 13 January 1977
“… a Bulldog Drummond incarnate …” J.G.Links on the Robinson interview: Foreword to The Satanist (Century, 1988 edn.)
‘MENU: Dennis Wheatley’s 80th Birthday Party’ Author’s collection.
“stunningly clad” ‘Satanic’ Times Diary 6 January 1977
“utterly exhausted” DW to Hedman 18 January 1977
“quiet but pleasant”; “no pain”; “on the mend” DW to Hedman 2 May 1977
“… subsided gently, and quite quickly …” Obituary, Mary Lutyens, Reports of the Royal Society of Literature 1977–79
“… quite wrong about the Roger Brook series …” DW letter to Lavinia Collins 11 July 1977. Possession of present writer.
Claims to have married in June 1924 at the age of 26: TDAAHW p.53
“the sense of order has gone” Interview with Brendan McCallum 18 March 1969. Cutting from unidentified paper. Archive.
“… every responsible person who values a life of order, stability and decency …” TDAAHW p.286
“The covert, non-utile function of a map …” Jonathan Meades, ‘I Like Maps,’ in Peter Knows What Dick Likes (Paladin, 1989) p.579.
“the map is not the territory”: Alfred Korzybski, inventor of ‘General Semantics’
“without requiring any context instantly conjures up a complete mental picture” TYMS p.81
“… while reading my stories they have been able to forget their pain …” D&I p.266
The Hound Of Heaven given by Eastaugh: Blackwell’s item 2041
“… PS by holding this up I hoped to write a more legible version, but I find I can’t. All love D” Wheatley’s last letter, collection of Richard Humphreys.
Three volume Flammarion: Death and its Mystery, Blackwell’s item 634.
“… the beauty of that light …” John Michell, ‘Life After Death’, An Orthodox Voice (Jam Publications, 1995) pp.21–22