The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - DW's Library

Dennis Wheatley's Library - modern first editions
William Hope Hodgson

DW’s complete set of first editions of William Hope Hodgson’s works

Click on the image to enlarge

William Hope Hodgson’s ‘Carnacki’ stories were very influential on DW, and DW appears to have got the idea for his ‘Sussamma Ritual’ in ‘The Devil Rides Out’ from Hope Hodgson’s ‘Saaamaaa Ritual’ in the Carnacki story ‘The Whistling Room’.

The Carnacki stories were subsequently republished in DW’s ‘Library of the Occult’ series towards the end of DW’s life.

DW almost certainly read the Carnacki stories when they were serialised in various magazines in the 1910s, but he subsequently (and probably in the 1950s) bought a uniformly bound set of first editions of Hodgson’s works.

Priced in the Blackwell’s catalogue at £110, the set was offered at the York Book Fair in January 2009 for the princely sum of £ 22,500.

References : See The Museum, Room Seven
Officer & Temporary Gentleman page 149
Phil Baker pp 282,332,377,492,598

Provenance : Photo courtesy of John Eggeling Books, Todmorden