As Darren Nugent told the Convention in 2015, Paula was a comic strip that appeared in the Daily Express between 23rd September and 23rd November 1946. According to the blurb in the Daily Express it was written by DW along with ‘ace scriptwriter’ T.E.B. Clarke and each strip was headed ‘Paula by Dennis Wheatley’, but the reality was - as DW was to discover to his great annoyance - that it was written exclusively by T.E.B. Clarke and DW was permitted to play no part in the creative process. In these more litigious times, DW might well have reached out to his lawyers as this seems to have been the result of a misrepresentation to both him and his public.
All 54 instalments did however bear his name, so it merits a place - albeit a rather curious place - in the DW archives.
The front page of the Daily Express on 23 September 1946, and the inside page with 'Paula'
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DW's own press cuttings of the introduction and the first instalment of the series
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DW's comments about how he discovered that
to was to have no input, and how upon learning
this, he protested in the strongest terms about
what he considered to be an abuse of his name
DW made these comments in the catalogue
of the manuscripts and other material he offered
for sale to an American University in the 1960s.
In the event the sale never took place*.
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The first six instalments
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*See ‘Dennis Wheatley: An Unpublished Miscellany', page 87.
My thanks to Darren Nugent for his presentation to the Convention in 2015, which helped inspire this piece.
