Partial Bibliography:
The Forbidden Territory 1933
Such Power is Dangerous 1933
'Old Rowley' 1933
Black August 1934
The Fabulous Valley 1934
The Devil Rides Out 1934
The Eunuch of Stamboul 1935
They Found Atlantis 1936
Murder Off Miami 1936
Contraband 1936
The Secret War 1937
Who Killed Robert Prentice? 1937
Red Eagle 1937
Uncharted Seas 1938
The Malinsay Massacre 1938
The Golden Spaniard 1938
The Quest of Julian Day 1939
Herewith the Clues 1939
Sixty Days to Live 1939
The Scarlet Impostor 1940
Three Inquisitive People 1940
Faked Passports 1940
The Black Baroness 1940
Strange Conflict 1941
The Sword of Fate 1941
Total War 1941
V for Vengeance 1942
Mediterranean Nights 1942
Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts 1943
The Man Who Missed the War 1945
Codeword Golden Fleece 1946
Come into My Parlour 1946
The Launching of Roger Brook 1947
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree 1948
The Haunting of Toby Jugg 1948
The Rising Storm 1949
The Seven Ages of Justerinis 1949
The Second Seal 1950
The Man Who Killed the King 1951
The Star of Ill Omen 1952
To the Devil - a Daughter 1953
Curtain of Fear 1953
The Island Where Time Stands Still 1954
The Dark Secret of Josephine 1955
The Ka of Gifford Hillary 1956
The Prisoner in the Mask 1957
Traitors' Gate 1958
Stranger than Fiction 1959
The Rape of Venice 1959
The Satanist 1960
Saturdays with Bricks 1961
Vendetta in Spain 1961
Mayhem in Greece 1962
Gunmen,Gallants and Ghosts (rev.) 1963
Mediterranean Nights (rev.) 1963
The Sultan's Daughter 1963
Bill for the Use of a Body 1964
They Used Dark Forces 1964
Dangerous Inheritance 1965
The Eight Ages of Justerinis 1965
The Wanton Princess 1966
Unholy Crusade 1967
The White Witch of the South Seas 1968
Evil in a Mask 1969
Gateway to Hell 1970
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware 1971
The Devil and all His Works 1971
The Strange Story of Linda Lee 1972
The Irish Witch 1973
Desperate Measures 1974
The Young Man Said 1977
Officer and Temporary Gentleman 1978
Drink and Ink 1979
The Deception Planners 1980
Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950's and 1960's. Wheatley was born in South London 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 Wheatley became a Merchant Navy officer cadet at the training ship HMS Worcester.
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 merchant business in 1919, but 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.
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks. 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 thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre and Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960's 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 Joséphine 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, to all of which he was hostile.
From 1974 though 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult," selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro. Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the Bishop of Peterborough. He was cremated at Tooting and his ashes interred at Brookwood Cemetery. He is commemorated on the Baker/Yates family monument at West Norwood Cemetery.
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