Dennis Wheatley

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Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a British writer born in London. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950s and 1960s.

Book Cover: Gateway To Hell

1 Early Life
2 Military Service
3 Writing
4 Politics
5 External links
- 5.1 List of works

[edit] Early Life

Dennis Yates(or Yeats) Wheatley was born in South London on 8 January 1897 to Albert David and Florence Elizabeth Harriet Wheatley (née Baker). He was the eldest of three children of an upper middle class family, the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He was expelled from Dulwich College. The school had already been attended by two prominent writers: P.G. Wodehouse (1894-1900), and Raymond Chandler (1900 onwards). Following his expulsion Wodehouse became a Merchant Navy officer cadet at the training ship HMS Worcester.

[edit] Military Service

He took part in the First World War but was gassed in a chlorine attack at Passchendaele and invalided out as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery after seeing service in Flanders, on the Ypres Salient, and in France at Cambrai and St. Quentin. He took over the family wine making business in 1919; however, following a decline in business after the depression in 1931, he set about writing and married his second wife.

During the Second World War, Wheatley's literary talents led him onto planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including drawing up suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain (recounted in his work "Stranger than Fiction"). The most famous of his submissions to the Joint Planning Staff of the war cabinet was on "Total War". He was given a commission directly into the JPS as Wing Commander, RAFVR; and took part in advanced planning for the Normandy invasions.

[edit] Writing

His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but a second book, The Forbidden Territory, was in 1933, and was a great success.

He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).

In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Josephine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.

He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic. However, two weeks before his death in November of 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough.

Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published in a set by Heron Books.

His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in the 1970s, and indicates a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works owing to copyright problems.

[edit] Politics

His work is fairly typical of his class and era; it contains a level of racism, anti-semitism, and clubland snobbery that are, to say the least, jarring to the modern ear. His leading characters are all dyed-in-the-wool supporters of Empire and the class system and many of his villains are villainous because they attack these ideas. If one can leave this to one side, however, his works are enjoyable pulp thrillers, and his "Roger Brook" series in particular offer the reader "history without tears" (Wheatley, in the introduction to The Man Who Killed the King. His historical analysis is coloured by his politics.

In the winter of 1947 Wheatley penned 'A Letter to Posterity' which he buried in an urn at his stately home. The letter was intended to be discovered some time in the future. In it he described his belief that the socialist reforms introduced by the post-war government would inevitably lead to an unjust state, and called for both passive and active resistance to it.

"Socialist ‘planning’ forbids any man to kill his own sheep or pig, cut down his own tree, put up a wooden shelf in his own house, build a shack in his garden, and either buy or sell the great majority of commodities – without a permit. In fact, it makes all individual effort an offence against the state. Therefore, this Dictatorship of the Proletariat, instead of gradually improving the conditions in which the lower classes live, as has been the aim of all past governments, must result in reducing everyone outside the party machine to the level of the lowest, idlest and most incompetent worker.

[...]

It will be immensely difficult to break the stranglehold of the machine, but it can be done, little by little; the first step being the formation of secret groups of friends for free discussion. Then numbers of people can begin systematically to break small regulations, and so to larger ones with passive resistance by groups of people pledged to stand together – and eventually the boycotting, or ambushing and killing of unjust tyrannous officials."

Dennis Wheatley, A Letter to Posterity