Some Christmas cards sent to Dennis Wheatley
Remarkably, a handful of Dennis Wheatley’s Christmas cards have survived in various private collections.
The pencil annotations are in general DW’s own.
Here they are to add enjoyment to your Christmas
An anonymous card from DW’s time as a Lieutenant at Ipswich in 1915
J D Moore
Undated card
DW’s fellow subaltern in World War One
A card from the Hungaria Restaurant, DW’s favourite restaurant in the 1930s, where he entertained Aleister Crowley, and which featured in his novels.
Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (MS1942)
Nancy Wheatley
DW’s first wife
Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (MS1942)
Felix Doubleday
undated card
Publisher
Norman Collins
Card from 1935
Chairman of publishers Victor Gollancz
W.R. Calvert
Card from 1935
Journalist and Author
William Younger
Card from 1936
William was DW’s stepson, a poet, an MI5 operative, and a successful novelist under the pseudonym of William Mole.
Maxwell Knight
Card from 1936
Spymaster (one of the two inspirations for Ian Fleming's “M”), Broadcaster & Naturalist
Tom Driberg
Card from 1936
Journalist, gourmet, sometime Chairman of the Labour Party, and the man who introduced DW to Aleister Crowley, Montague Summers and Rollo Ahmed
Francis Powys
Card from 1936
? The author T.F. (Theodore Francis) Powys
Bernard Falk (?)
Card from 1936
? Research editor at the Sunday Dispatch
Howard Spring
Card from 1937
Author and critic
Joan Grant (1907-1989)
Card from 1938
Joan Grant is famous for her book ‘Winged Pharaoh’ in which she apparently remembered her former life as a Queen in First Dynasty Egypt.
DW helped publicise the book and her experiences affirmed his belief in re-incarnation.
Richard Wainwright
Card from 1938
Producer of the black & white films of Forbidden Territory (1934) & Secret of Stamboul
(1936)
Major-General Geoffrey White CB, CMG, DSO (1870 – 1959)
Undated card
An old Etonian, Major-General White served in the Second Boer War, and took part in the Relief of Kimberley, later becoming the Commandant of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich
The Earl & Countess Temple
Undated card
Major the Earl Temple of Stowe (also known as Chandos Temple) was the No. 2 on Strangeway’s Deception Planning team in North Africa
George A Hill
Card from 1952
Dedicatee of The Eunuch of Stamboul (1935), George (‘Peter’) Hill was amongst other things a secret agent in Bolshevik Russia, a soldier and a successful businessman. DW described him in ‘Drink & Ink’ as one of the most interesting men he had ever met.
Lord and Lady Derwent
Undated card
Lord and Lady Derwent
Card from 1952
Lord and Lady Derwent
Card from 1976
Lord and Lady Derwent (Patrick Vanden- Bempde-Johnstone, 4th Baron Derwent and his wife Marise)
Lord Derwent was a Conservative Minister and Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords
Lord Clanmorris
John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris
British diplomat (Ambassador to India in 1959), novelist, MI5 operative and alleged inspiration for Le Carre’s George Smiley
Lord Clanmorris
Card from 1974
John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris. Novelist and alleged inspiration for Le Carre’s George Smiley
Lord Donegall
Card from 1958
Lord Donegall
Card from 1959
Lord Donegall
Card from 1972
Lord Donegall was a close friend of DW’s, and it was through
Lord Donegall that DW acquired his flat in Cadogan Square in the early 1960s
He was a long time member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London,
and edited its magazine The Sherlock Holmes Journal for many years.
Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins, KCMG, DSO, MC, and Lady Gubbins
Card from 1972
Major-General Sir Colin Gubbins was the driving force behind the
Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War
General Sir Richard Gale GCB, KBE, DSO
Card from 1971
General Sir Richard Gale led the British Paratroop Assault on Normandy and he was the first British general to land on French soil on D-Day at 3.30 a.m.
Brigadier Dudley Clarke CB, CBE
Card from 1971
Dudley Clarke – wartime deception planner extraordinaire.
He is described by Thaddeus Holt in his book ‘The Deceivers’ as quite simply
‘The Master of the Game’.
Among his other achievements he was responsible for the naming of and early organisation of the Commandos.
Oliver Stanley
Former Secretary of State for War and first ‘Controlling Officer’, succeeded in the role by ‘Johnny’ Bevan
Stanley was DW’s first commanding officer when he was finally put into uniform in World War Two
Colonel J.H. Bevan, MC
Card from 1971
DW’s Commanding Officer for much of World War II
Bevan was the head of the London Controlling Section, or deception planning specialists, in World War II.
Sir John Masterman
undated
Noted sportsman, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1957-8, and wartime chair of the Twenty (XX), or ‘Double-Cross’ Committee, which fed false information to the enemy through the country’s array of double-agents.
Sir John Peck
Card from 1972
Churchill’s Private Secretary in World War II
Sir Derek Jakeway, Governor of Fiji, and his wife
Undated but 1966 or later
DW’s hosts when he visited Fiji, and the people instrumental in his meeting the Fijian artist Semisi Maya
Provenance : Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (MS 1942)
Betty and Eric Wight-Boycott
Betty Wight-Boycott was DW's secretary in the 1950s.
Provenance : Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (MS 1942)
Sir John Pilcher, British Ambassador to Japan 1967-1972.
Previous to that, Sir John was British Ambassador to the Philippines (1959-1963) and to Austria (1965-1967),
and he has been described as ‘the last of the scholar-diplomats’
Henry Hopkinson, 1st Baron Colyton
British diplomat and conservative politician
Hammond Innes
Card from 1972
Novelist
Hammond Innes
Card from 1974
Novelist
(Sir) Christopher Lee and family
A card from when they were DW’s neighbours in the 1960s/70s
Sir Christopher famously portrayed The Duke de Richleau in the Hammer Film of ‘The Devil Rides Out’ (1968)
Reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library (MS1942)
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William F Dickson
Card from 1974
Chief of the Defence Staff (and thus the professional head of the British Armed Forces) in the 1950s and one of DW’s earliest wartime mentors.
Sir Ronald Wingate
Card from 1974
One of DW’s colleagues on The London Controlling Section in World War II
Cousin of Lawrence of Arabia and Orde Wingate
A card from radio presenter Jack di Manio (1914-1988)
George Sutcliffe
Bookmark
Sutcliffe was one of the principals of famed bookbinders Sangorski & Sutcliffe, who bound DW’s copies of his own works.