Dennis Wheatley was the eldest of three children born into a prosperous middle-class family in 1897. His father was a successful wine merchant based in Mayfair, London. After serving in the First World War, where he was gassed in a chlorine attack during the battle of Passchendaele, Wheatley joined the family business in 1919. He proved highly successful as a vintner.

He sold liqueurs and ultra-rare brandies, and at its peak the business counted not only the Duke of York (later King George VI) but a total of ‘three Kings, twenty-one Imperial, Royal and Serene Highnesses, twelve British Ducal Houses, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a score of millionaires’ among its clientele.

The work allowed him to socialize with those of a higher standing, which gave Wheatley pretensions towards a more aristocratic lifestyle. However, in 1931 during the Great Depression, he was almost undone by near fraudulent activities which badly over-extended the family business. Facing near bankruptcy, Wheatley quickly sold the business. He then decided to write his way out of debt and possible financial ruin.

Wheatley’s first novel Three Inquisitive People was accepted by the publisher Hutchison but was not published until later in his career. The book introduced one of his most famous characters, the Duke de Richleau. He also presented his publishers with a second novel The Forbidden Territory which became his first published novel. This book brought him instant success and was reprinted seven times during its first seven weeks in 1933.

The following year, he wrote The Devil Rides Out, which cleverly mixed the crime thriller with a story of the occult. Wheatley had read extensively about esoteric beliefs and various occult practices but relied on contacts he met through the politician Tom Driberg like Aleister Crowley, the Reverend Montague Summers, and Rollo Ahmed, to bring his knowledge up to date.

The Devil Rides Out was hailed as “the best thing of its kind since Dracula” and firmly established Wheatley as the “#1 thriller writer.” Since its publication, The Devil Rides Out has never been out of print and was made into a highly successful movie with Christopher Lee as Richleau and Charles Gray as the Crowley-inspired Mocata in 1968.

Over the next forty years, Wheatley wrote 65 novels and sold an estimated 70 million books. His tremendous success allowed him to cultivate the image of the distinguished gentleman he had long desired. To some, like the novelist Anthony Powell, this image seemed at odds to some of the “conscious drivel” Wheatley produced as a writer. His books mixed far-fetched comic book adventures with utterly gripping plotlines. Though his work was sometimes denounced for its ridiculous characters and racist stereotypes, Wheatley was often sought out by writers like Powell to give advice on plot structure and narrative.
 

That ole devil himself: Wheatley with his books and his war medals. (Photo by Alan Warren).
 
Despite a reputation for writing racy occult novels like The Devil Rides Out, To the Devil a Daughter, and The Satanist, and to an extent some of his more crackpot right-wing ideas (like a belief of an inevitable Communist revolution in swinging sixties England), Wheatley had a taste for the finer things in life. He kept an impressive library of books (mainly classics and works of non-fiction) and a well-stocked cellar of wine. His knowledge of the drinks trade led to him being commissioned to write The Seven Ages of Justerini’s, a history of the respected wine merchants Justerini & Brooks in 1949. This book included recipes for some of Wheatley’s favorite cocktails like this one for Nectarine Gin, which is an overly sweet recipe as “Wheatley had a notoriously sweet tooth and liked to serve it to as an after-dinner liqueur at Grove Place, his country house in Lymington, Hampshire.”:

Nectarine Gin

Prick your Nectarines all over with a fork and put them in an open vessel. Pour upon them as much Gin as will cover the fruit, and add a quarter-of-a-pound of soft white sugar with each quart of Gin. Cover the vessel with a cheesecloth and leave to stand, Give the contents a stir twice or thrice in the next forty-eight hours, then strain off the liquor and bottle it.

He also had one for a “meaty” Bloody Mary:

Dennis Wheatley’s Bloody Mary

One nip Tomato Juice, one Sherry glass Vodka-Smirnoff, one Sherry glass Campbells Beef Bouillon, one nip Worcester Sauce, half glass- Lime or Lemon- fresh, ice- shake until froth appears- serve.

I know what I’ll be drinking tonight while reading The Devil and All His Works.
 

 
Via the Greasy Spoon.
 

 
I can’t think of many leading actors who have died on-screen as often as Christopher Lee. Over his long and successful career, Lee was staked several times as Dracula, destroyed by daylight, eradicated by fresh running water (Dracula Prince of Darkness), staked then set alight by lightning (Scars of Dracula), impaled on a cartwheel (Dracula AD 1972), snared by a hawthorn bush (The Satanic Rites of Dracula), dissolved in an acid bath (The Curse of Frankenstein), killed by James Bond, stabbed by his treacherous servant (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), and decapitated by Anakin Skywalker (aka Darth Vader) in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, to name but a few of his most memorable exits. If Lee was in a film, you could usually bet he’d be dead by the last reel. Even so, Lee was a major box office draw and his name above a title ensured a couple of hours of thrilling entertainment.

Despite the fact Lee had a tendency to be bumped-off in his films, he was the kind of guy you’d want on your team when battling monsters, demons, and Satanic creeps. He was debonair and presented himself as a man of knowledge and experience. He had an impressive war record where he was attached to the SAS and by his own admission had an incredible knowledge of the occult. He was introduced to this esoteric subject by his friend author Dennis Wheatley and it became a bit of an obsession after he read the works of Aleister Crowley.

In 2011, Lee was asked at a Q&A session at the University College in Dublin, if it was true that he had “a huge collection of occultism-related literature that amounted to 20,000 books?” Lee replied:

“If I had such a collection, I’d be living in a bathroom.”

 

Lee as a Satanic priest in ‘To the Devil a Daughter.’
 
Maybe not living in the bathroom but certainly at home in the library as Lee did ‘fess up to owning around 12,000 books on the occult in an interview with the Telegraph the same year. Lee took the occult and Satanism very seriously and was wont to warn people of its dangers:

“I have met people who claim to be Satanists, who claim to be involved with black magic, who claimed that they not only knew a lot about it. But as I said, I certainly have not been involved and I warn all of you: never, never, never. You will not only lose your mind: you lose your soul.”

From this, you can take Lee was a believer—an Anglo-Catholic—who was deeply concerned about the possible dangers of devil worship, Satanism, and communing with spirits. Strange that he should make a living out of pretending to do these very things.

More after the jump…

 
Dennis Wheatley probably did more to sell black magic and the occult to the masses than any other writer. During his lifetime, Wheatley wrote over 60 books, which sold more than 50 million copies. His best-sellers included such classics as The Devil Rides Out, To the Devil a Daughter, and The Haunting of Toby Jugg. Wheatley actually hoped these occult novels would alert readers to the growing “forces of darkness,” which he believed were destroying Britain and the world. He considered these dark forces to be communism, socialism, multiculturalism, and to an extent sexual liberation and personal freedom of expression. Actually, anyone whose politics he didn’t like, the old crumudgeon lumped in with “Satanism” and he once famously said:

“Is it possible that riots, wildcat strikes, anti-apartheid demonstrations and the appalling increase in crime have any connection with magic and Satanism?”

It was after the Second World War, that Wheatley first indulged his nutty belief that a war between what he described as “good” and “evil” was inevitable, and became firmly convinced people (i.e. those to the right) should be prepared to form private militias to fight against the rise of “Satanism.” Cue thunder and lightning flash.

So, that’s the background to this brief interview, which Wheatley gave to the BBC in 1970, where he discussed his views on “good” and “evil,” “light” and “dark,” and why he believed civilization was disintegrating.
 

 
Artist and illustrator Mark Dawes has designed this fabulous poster of one of my favorite actors, Charles Gray, in his unforgettable role as the Crowley-inspired villain Mocata, from The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride).

Adapted by Richard Matheson from Dennis Wheatley’s classic, occult novel, the film starred Christopher Lee as the Duc du Richelieu, who pitted his wits against Satanist Mocata (Gray), for the souls of Simon (Patrick Mower) and Tanith (Nike Arrighi).

Mark has a brilliant selection of work over at his Illustrated Blog, which myself and Mocata will you to check out….
 

 
With thanks to Mark Dawes!