BILL HARTLEY recalls the occult appeal of a once-bestselling author

He was a writer loathed by critics, but his books were best sellers. Today, Dennis Wheatley is forgotten but the question is, how did he continue to remain popular for so long?

Born in 1897, Wheatley was a product of the Edwardian age. In London his family had risen to prosperity first as grocers, then in the wine trade. This was an era when Mayfair and its grand houses still depended upon local retailers for their needs. It helped shape the snobbery which was to colour his writings. Wheatley’s books are full of references to fine wines and spirits, influenced by the catalogues of the family firm. Perhaps a Reserve Royale from the summer palace of Tsar Alexander 1^st or maybe a fine champagne cognac from the cellars of Marshal Ney? The firm was clearly no mere off-licence. Cirrhosis of the liver carried off his father, suggesting he did more than simply sell the stuff, and Wheatley was to follow in his footsteps. As he told readers in the biographical notes which accompanied his works, Wheatley and Co’s customers included, “three kings, twenty-one royal and serene highnesses, twelve British ducal houses, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a score of millionaires”. At least until the depression hit, and forced him to abandon the wine trade for writing.

Wheatley wrote across a variety of genres. His first book The Forbidden Territory (1933) was a thriller set in the Soviet Union and introduced readers to the four protagonists who were to feature in many other works. As a writer, he was a reactionary who would leave no cliché unturned. Foreigners conformed to archetypes when necessary, such as ‘sinister’ Chinese. His writing style included much bad prose but was saved by a powerful narrative with cliff hanger endings to chapters; he also troubled to include a strong romantic interest, which brought him female readers. Wheatley became an enthusiastic traveller, introducing his readers to plenty of history and geography, at a time when most people had little opportunity to leave the country. He was perhaps, the first writer before Ian Fleming to include in his works brand names and references to real shops, notably Justerini and Brooks, the company which bought his family wine merchants.

Apart from thrillers, historical novels and on one lamentable occasion, a foray into sci-fi, it is his occult books that marked him out as a writer. In the thirties and forties there was a considerable interest in the subject and Wheatley’s ‘Black Magic’ novels certainly tapped into the zeitgeist, so much so that if he is remembered at all, it is due to this. Wheatley’s work has been described as “luxury Satanism” and it is a thread which runs through his works. Reflecting this, the back cover of a Wheatley paperback usually carried a photograph depicting him as a smoking jacketed gentleman, with an array of volumes in the background and a glass of wine at his elbow. His was a world where plots were laid out in someone’s library and downstairs there would be a fine cellar to draw upon for guests. Imperial Tokay dessert wine was a brand with which his readers would become very familiar. 

The interwar years introduced the British public to an array of occultists, notably Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), an indefatigable self- publicist  who built a reputation for depravity and wickedness. Crowley was said to start the day with a half pint of ether as a morning bracer, causing him to smell like an operating theatre. A pre-lunch drink might consist of a triple absinthe. Wheatley met Crowley and others like him, and was left wondering why these masters of the black arts always seemed in need of a loan. Such contacts led him to notice a link between occultism and rightwing politics. He wasn’t the only one: George Orwell once found no fewer than 38 advertisements by clairvoyants in an edition of Gringoire, the French Fascist newspaper. As a consequence, Wheatley began to see a political aspect to occultism. 

The main influence behind his occult output was the Reverend Montague Summers (1880-1948) a wearer of extravagant ecclesiastical outfits, such as a purple stock, shovel hat and buckled shoes. Summers claimed to be a Catholic priest, though there is no evidence that he was actually ordained. His book A History of Witchcraft and Demonology (1926) was a publication on which Wheatley built his supposed occult knowledge. He drew upon it extensively for his first foray into the genre, The Devil Rides Out (1934). The plot centres on a group of Satanists planning to start a world war by finding the talisman of Set, a mummified Egyptian phallus belonging to the god.

 Wheatley would linger over his descriptions, some of which must have had readers thumbing their dictionaries. In one book, a temple devoted to the Prince of Darkness is described as being furnished with “heavy curtains of silk damask, tulle cushioned pre dieus, together with luxurious chairs in crimson and gold”. No blasted heath for Wheatley’s Satanists.

His smattering of arcane knowledge was enough to drag occult fiction into the world of the thriller and produced a total of eight books on this theme, sharing with his readers details of travel on the astral plane and the different grades in the Golden Dawn sect. He had an eclectic readership, to say the least. William Joyce (“Lord Haw Haw”) later to be hanged for treason, told him that Hermann Goering was a fan. Despite being a reactionary, Wheatley was no admirer of the Nazis and probably found them rather common. His writings were heavy with nostalgia for a world before the Great War.   

On the subject of Nazis, Wheatley’s second occult novel Strange Conflict sees the Duke de Richelieu, a recurring protagonist, discovering that German intelligence is working with a practitioner of voodoo, who uses astral projection to spy on allied convoys. In this book as well as many others, readers certainly got their money’s worth. Wheatley’s books would often run up to 160,000 words, twice the length of the average thriller. He was incredibly self-disciplined, fortified by innumerable cigarettes; one novel was written in just seven weeks. Five of Wheatley’s books were filmed, but only The Devil Rides Out, which appeared in 1968, made any real impact. It was made by Hammer Films, and one film historian has described it as the studio’s swansong. It was certainly the only one upon which the studio spent a significant amount of money. Unusually, Christopher Lee, the Hammer stalwart, plays a sympathetic part.     

With the defeat of Nazi Germany, Wheatley transferred his satanism to the communists (the real master isn’t Stalin, but Satan). As usual, this was twinned with dastardly foreigners and an undercurrent of anti-semitism, though the latter was selective. Wheatley’s main objection was to Jews who also happened to be foreign. Marx, Trotsky et al were bad; however, one of Wheatley’s chief protagonists, Simon Aron, is a Jew. Like Disraeli, Aron’s family had been in Britain for a long time and was therefore acceptable. Foreigners tended to run contrary to Wheatley’s admiration of the gifted amateur and his Edwardian sense of fair play.

Wheatley’s occult novels were his most successful post war books with titles such as They Used Dark Forces and To the Devil a Daughter. He never updated his Edwardian prose style (“that’s devilish good of you, old man”) and remarkably this took him into the Sixties and Seventies.

Arguably, there were two reasons for this – the first being that his novels contain a good deal of erotic imagery. Much is hinted at, notably female sacrificial victims, although very little is actually delivered. Usually they were rescued in the nick of time, with no ill effects. His dated jingoistic style suggests that Wheatley viewed the era before the Great War as something of an Eden. There was a respect for hierarchy, with the ‘right sort of people’ running things, and sinister foreigners kept at bay.

Secondly the sixties saw a revival of interest in the occult. The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album for example, featured a picture of Crowley on the cover. Wheatley had the field much to himself and would even lecture on the subject. As a result, he continued to be one of his publisher’s (Hutchinson) bestselling authors. A new Wheatley novel could sell 100,000 copies in a couple of weeks.

By the 1970s, the supernatural had begun to modernise. Works by writers such as James Herbert and Stephen King were beginning to appear, and their brand of the supernatural was to be found far from a gentleman’s library, in more everyday settings. It is difficult to imagine Wheatley’s work attracting a new audience. His was a world of the Right Sort of People with an allegiance to the Crown and Empire.

Years of good living finally took their toll. He died aged 80 in 1977, a product of the Edwardian era who had remarkably remained in fashion through all sorts of changes and upheavals in society, of a sort which might have been expected to render his opinions and prose style obsolete. Wheatley’s timing throughout his career was good. He departed just as the supernatural was beginning to catch up with the rest of society and embrace the Everyman protagonist.