Dennis Wheatley

Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977), English thriller writer, whose more than 70 books in the adventure, occult, crime, historical, and science fiction genres are estimated to have sold in excess of 50 million copies during his lifetime.

Dennis Yates Wheatley was born on January 8, 1897, in London into a wealthy family of Mayfair wine merchants. He was sent to boarding school in Margate from the age of eight, and was later expelled from Dulwich College, after which his father enrolled him as a sea cadet on HMS Worcester. At 16 he spent a year in Mosel, Germany, learning about winemaking. During World War I, Wheatley served in the Royal Field Artillery and saw combat at Cambrai and St Quentin, before being invalided home from gas poisoning. After the war, he joined the family firm, but following his father’s death and the advent of the Great Depression, the business declined. Facing bankruptcy, Wheatley turned to writing. His first published work, the historical adventure novel The Forbidden Territory (1933), which inaugurated a series featuring the character Duc de Richleau, was an immediate success, and a series of popular thrillers in the 1930s consolidated his position as a bestselling author.

Wheatley’s prodigious output included several series of novels featuring recurring protagonists in the secret agent/adventurer mould: Gregory Sallust, introduced in Black August (1934); Roger Brook, in The Launching of Roger Brook (1947); and Julian Day, in The Sword of Fate (1941). A number of his books were filmed, most notably the occult thriller The Devil Rides Out (1934), by Hammer in 1968 starring Christopher Lee as the Duc de Richleau. Among his other black magic novels are The Haunting of Toby Jugg (1948) and To the Devil a Daughter (1953). He also published a crime fiction series in the format of simulated police files, beginning with Murder Off Miami (1936).

Apart from fiction, Wheatley wrote the historical account Red Eagle—The Story of the Russian Revolution (1937) and the biography Old Rowley—A Private Life of Charles II (1933), as well as several volumes of autobiography, starting with Stranger Than Fiction (1959). During World War II, he received a commission under the rank of wing commander with the Joint Planning Staff of the War Cabinet, where he contributed to the Allied war strategy; one of his proposals was published in 1941 as Total War. He died on November 10, 1977.