The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - DW's Library

Dennis Wheatley's Library - modern first editions
A E W Mason

One of the volumes Mason signed :
'At the Villa Rose'

Click on the images to enlarge

DW owned quite a number of Mason’s books, including a first edition of ‘The Four Feathers’ and a fifteen volume set of his works which had been specially bound by Zaehnsdorf for Charles Plumptre Johnson.

The story of how they came to be signed is touching and sad, and is told in the introduction to Mason’s ‘The Prisoner in the Opal’ in DW’s series ‘The Library of the Occult’.

It reads :

‘To my sorrow I never met Mr Mason, but it was only by the narrowest fluke of bad luck that I not only missed doing so but also missed enjoying an hour or two's private conversation with him.

In 1947 I bought a delightful leather-bound set of his books and wrote to him asking if he would be kind enough to autograph them for me. I was then living at Lymington, and I received a reply from his secretary that he would be pleased to do so if I would bring them to his flat, 51 South Street, Mayfair, when I was next in London.

I was going up the following week, so wrote giving the date and saying I would bring the books along about twelve o'clock. I also arranged to lunch with my mother that day. She was then a widow, living out at Wimbledon, and I fear I was not a very good son as I rarely went there to see her. But it must not be thought that she was a lonely woman. She had my sister living permanently with her and many friends - not only from her younger days but also a second crop garnered when, a few years after my father's death, she married an ex-Lord Mayor of London, Sir Louis Newton, and so became one of the Mansion House set.

At twelve o'clock on the day appointed, I duly took my set of books to 51 South Street, and a copy of my own The Launching of Roger Brook - the first of the series which had just been published - as an offering to the distinguished novelist. His secretary met me at door, took the books and said:

'Do come in, Mr Wheatley. Mr Mason is so much looking forward to your lunching with him.'

It emerged that she had sent the invitation to me at Lymington and I had missed it by a post. What in the world to do ? The temptation to lunch with the great man was almost overwhelming, but I had not seen my mother for several months so I felt I could not possibly telephone and let her down.

The opportunity never came again, for Mr Mason was already a dying man. But a few weeks later I had a letter from his secretary, telling me of his death and that my Roger Brook was the last book she had read to him, and that he had enjoyed every word of it.’

References : Dennis Wheatley’s ‘Library of the Occult’ Volume 10, ‘The Prisoner in the Opal’,
(Sphere 1974), pp7-9
Officer & Temporary Gentleman page 145

Provenance : Private collection