The first of this month's updates takes us back to DW's youth, and when as a thirteen year old, he wrote his first story, 'The Snake with Diamond Eyes'. Several decades later, DW published it in 'Mediterranean Nights', and the original manuscript has recently been found.

The second update is to the Museum's section on DW the Wine Merchant, where a further wine and cigar catalogue from his days as a wine and cigar merchant has recently been unearthed. Look at the prices and cry!

Third, and thanks to Phil Baker, I am logging in the 'Articles about DW' section a very 1970s publication entitled 'Nobs & Nosh: Eating with the Beautiful People'. It is a compilation of amusing anecdotes about food from a vast number of celebrities of the day. I have reproduced DW's entry, which is one of the longer ones.

Elsewhere, continuing the story of the First Gift Box that I mentioned last month, I see the buyer has re-offered it on eBay for the much higher sum of £899.95.

On a similar theme, one of DW's WW1 tailor's bills and a leave pass signed by him are on offer on Abebooks for £550, and the bronze of Napoleon on horseback which DW bequeathed to his publisher Sir Robert Lusty of Hutchinson's recently sold for £1,028 including premium at a London auction house, towards the top estimate and with several people bidding.

This month sees a number of updates.

First, I have made an adjustment to the Rarity Ratings List, because a fourth complete example of DW's first gift box came up for auction at a London auction house at the end of last month. The auctioneers may have been unaware of its rarity as they made no comment about it in their catalogue, and the box went for a hammer price of £320 (£438 net), just above the high end of the auctioneer's estimate. I imagine the buyer is delighted with their purchase.

Second, I have added two items of DW/Joan Grant interest.

The first is DW's autographed copy of Joan's Life as Carola (1939), which I recently discovered. I have put a photograph of the inscription on the relevant page of the Special Exhibition on DW and Joan Grant in place of the previous, non-DW, example.

On the following page of the same Special Exhibition, I discussed how DW sent the initial typescript of Strange Conflict (1941) to Joan and her husband Charles Beatty so they could review the typescript and suggest amendments for any 'factual errors'.

I never expected to see their feedback, but I came across it a short while ago, and I have accordingly added some sample pages from it to the page's illustrations, showing that in some cases (but not all), DW changed the details of the story in line with their suggestions.

Third, for those who are interest in foreign editions, I am adding to the website's foreign editions section a copy of the first Portuguese translation of The Forbidden Territory, dating to 1936, hitherto unrecorded on this website. As an added bonus, this copy has a highly amusing commentary in DW's own hand, which I have also reproduced.

Finally, hot on the heels of Heywood Hill's inclusion of The Eunuch of Stamboul in their list of Best 50 Spy Novels published since 1900 (see last month's update), this month the editor of The Bookseller has been talking about the books he has resurfaced from his past to fill the bookshelves in his new flat. I am pleased to note that one of these is DW's The Ka of Gifford Hillary - good news for those who are reviewing the book at this year's Convention.

Following a conversation I had not long ago with Franklin, I have added to the section with books containing mentions of DW Joan Miller's autobiography published in 1986 (and published after some difficulty) 'One Girls War'.

Joan was Maxwell Knight's work colleague and girlfriend when he was a senior operative in MI5, and in this very entertaining book she has some candid things to say about both Maxwell Knight (revealing both his sexuality and his ruthlessness), DW's stepson Bill Younger who worked with her in MI5 (and whom she liked), and the Wheatleys (whom it appears she did not).

Elsewhere, at the end of the reference section of the introductory page for the Special Exhibition on DW and Ian Fleming, I have added a further 'similarity', and I have also added a thought on how one might perhaps evaluate the extent to which IF's copying was deliberate.

Finally, I must thank Franklin for drawing to my attention a list compiled by Mayfair booksellers Heywood Hill, who have produced a list of what they consider the Best 50 Spy Novels published since 1900. The list includes DW's The Eunuch of Stamboul, and it sits alongside such masterpieces as Rudyard Kipling's Kim, John Buchan's Greenmantle, Arthur Conan Doyle's His Last Bow, Len Deighten's The Ipcress File, and the more recent Mick Herron's Slow Horses. I think DW would have been delighted to be included in such august company.

This month sees the launch of the Museum's final, and in my opinion most important Special Exhibition.

Virtually all of DW's original manuscripts survive, although up to now, this information has been known to only a small handful of individuals.

Having studied them carefully, this month I am unveiling a Special Exhibition on DW's writing technique.

I hope you will find this Special Exhibition - hardly any of which has been seen before except by Dennis Wheatley and his secretary of the time - enjoyable, and a fitting culmination to the Special Exhibitions in the virtual Museum.

I am hoping you will find the whole exhibition of interest, but if you are busy, I suggest visiting page 7, which details the extraordinary amount of research DW did to get the facts correct in his books; page 8, which gives an overview of DW’s production methodology, and how it changed over time; page 11 on how DW planned his historical novels; page 13 on experimentation, and page 17, which reveals for the first time ever that DW dictated some of his books.

After this I will be taking a short break, but I aim to be back with more updates in the late spring/summer.

In the section of the Museum on Gordon Eric Gordon-Tombe, I have added two books from DW's Library with Gordon-Tombe significance. The first is the copy of Oscar Wilde with which Gordon-Tombe always travelled. It was when this book was left behind after Gordon-Tombe's disappearance that DW began seriously to worry about his friend's welfare.

The second is a book that Gordon-Tombe recommended to DW, and that DW was carrying with him the first time he met his first wife Nancy. This latter exhibit comes courtesy of Kevin Pearce, and I am grateful to him for permission to display it.

Elsewhere, you may be interested in an article in French Property News which describes how author and screenwriter Lewis Hinton was inspired by 'To The Devil A Daughter' to move to France, where he lives and works as a successful novelist. Reading the article, you might even be tempted to follow his example!

Following this update, I will be working on my final Special Exhibition in the virtual Museum, and while this is underway, I will be suspending my monthly updates. The periodic updates will return once the Special Exhibition has been finished.

There has a great deal of interest in the relationship between DW and Ian Fleming, partly because they both held important jobs in Secret Intelligence in World War Two, during which they knew and entertained each other when DW was already a highly successful novelist and when Ian Fleming's first novel lay far in his future - but also because there are many who hold that Ian Fleming consciously or subconsciously based James Bond at least to some extent on DW's Gregory Sallust.

Be that as it may - and a wise member of our community once observed to me that all authors to some degree or another lean on those who have come before - I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the published material and also at some material that has hitherto been unseen in order to evaluate their relationship in what will probably be my penultimate Special Exhibition in the Museum.

A very happy New Year to all the site's visitors!

Charles

This month I'm adding two exhibits to the room in the Museum on the women in DW's life. The first is part of the 94 verse poem DW wrote to Barbara Symonds in 1919, after his safe return from World War One. It appears to have left Barbara un-moved. Another extraordinary survival.

The second is the menu for the wedding breakfast when DW married Nancy Robinson in 1922, not long after Eric Gordon Tombe's disappearance. If you look carefully, you can see that Dennis's name is mis-spelt on the card, which was autographed in pencil by some of his friends.

This second item is reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library.

Finally, for Christmas, some Christmas cards from days gone by:

The first is an undated card DW sent out, probably in the 1940s.

The second is a card DW's wartime colleague U.S. Colonel Bill Baumer sent him in the 1970s, in which Baumer wishes that it had been DW who had written the first book on Operation Bodyguard.

The third is a card sent to DW by his stepson, Major-General Sir John (Jack) Younger.

You can see both the last two cards towards the bottom of the relevant page.

Finally, I'm pleased to advise that next year's Dennis Wheatley Convention (the 18th) will be held at Dartington Hall in Devon on 1st/2nd November 2025.

I hope all visitors to the site have a very happy Christmas.

This month sees the addition of the Convention Report for the 2024 Convention.

Well attended, and one of the best Conventions I can remember. Thanks to all who participated and I hope the Report will tempt even more to join/re-join in coming years.

We have agreed the 2025 Convention will again be held at Dartington, but we have not yet finalised the date, although it will be in the Autumn.

Please watch the Conventions page for further announcements, also for details of the proposed summer (?) Field Trip, in which we are thinking of visiting Holkham Hall, the probable inspiration for 'Stillwaters' in the Roger Brook stories.

This month I am adding a little more on DW's Library of the Occult.

First of all, I have added a sentence to emphasise that the aim of the venture was to corner the occult paperback market. Second, I have added a picture of a (uniquely surviving?) copy of the rather stylish invitation to the champagne launch party at Brown's Hotel on 1st May 1974. I have also added that the 'manuscript' sent to booksellers to advertise the series was designed by DW himself - a fact that I only discovered recently

Finally on this page, I have added a picture of some of DW's specially bound personal copies of The Library of the Occult. I was not aware of their existence until earlier this year. There is always something interesting to find!

Elsewhere, I have added some more entries to the Original Titles section. I do hope you will enjoy them!

This month sees the addition of two more exhibits to those covering DW's 80th birthday party in 1977. The first is a menu card for a further celebration that took place at The Ivy later on in the week. The second is one of the many congratulatory telegrams that DW was sent, and kept. This one, rather charmingly, was sent to him by the fictional characters he had created.

Elsewhere, I have added some more original titles for books which DW wrote, and where he changed the title to the one we are familiar with before the book was published. The books concerned include They Found Atlantis, Uncharted Seas, The Scarlet Impostor, The Black Baroness and Sixty Days to Live. I have put the new entries and their working titles in bold for the time being.

Finally, I noted a while back in the bibliography that DW took part in a debate at the Oxford Union in 1955 on the motion that "Equality is in theory a pestilential heresy and in practice a pitiful illusion", but at that time I did not know on which side of the motion he spoke. I can now advise that he spoke in favour of the motion.

This month's update starts with another rare survival from DW's early years: A recently-discovered notebook from his prep school days, when an eight or nine year old DW drew pencil sketches of a cavalier in his school notebook.

An echo of this is perhaps to be seen years later in the Van Dyck portrait of a cavalier which is one of the four old masters which grace the panelled walls of the richly furnished dining room of the Duke de Richleau's first floor flat in Curzon Street.

I have also added to the Museum, from many decades later, an invitation to a World War Two reunion. I already have on display a rather nice invitation to an LCS reunion dinner where Johnny Bevan makes clear that the date chosen must be one which DW can attend. To this I can now add an invitation to a Cabinet War Room reunion dinner from John Heagerty of the Map Room, the footnote to which ('Make a big effort: we want you') makes clear that DW was a valued participant at the reunion dinners of other parts of this exclusive and highly secret wartime community.

Elsewhere, in the present, I have noted, with thanks to Raki, that the recent biography of Dudley Clarke by Robert Hutton ('The Illusionist') makes several references to DW.

Finally, for bibliophiles, I mention in 'Title Notes' a copy of 'The Second Seal' which the printers mis-collated, and which unusually reached the public. Someone in Hutchinson's quality control department was clearly asleep on the job...

With thanks to Phil Baker for alerting me to it, this month's first update records a 2023 reprint of DW's classic 'The Devil Rides Out' in French ('Les Vierges de Satan') with a rather unforgettable cover.

This month also sees the addition, thanks to Jon Hampstead, of a picture of the miniature (dummy) DW books that occasionally come on the market for dolls house enthusiasts etc.

This month further sees the addition of a rather extraordinary find - some of the original World War One notebooks in which DW wrote in pencil the first draft of the first part of Julie's Lovers. Hitherto unsuspected and undiscovered, they show that even with his first novel, DW had adopted his method of writing first in pencil, later re-drafting in ink, and finally (in this case, with the help of his father) getting his novel put into typescript.

The eagle-eyed will notice that the pages are held together not with pins, which were perhaps impossible to get hold of at the Front, but with used matchsticks.

Finally, I have slightly updated the article on the Crime Dossiers that DW and J G Links produced in the 1930s to include information that was not available at the time the article was originally written, and to illustrate the rare (unique?) 1980s boxes housing two of the dossiers that were displayed at a recent Convention.

This month I conclude the special exhibition on DW's activities in World War Two.

For the attachment to the first exhibit, I must thank David Pymer. Over time he has been compiling a list of all the books that have been published mentioning World War Two Deception and the London Controlling Section - with some but not all of them also explicitly naming Dennis Wheatley. The list is not yet complete, but David reckons there are currently over two hundred such books.

I came across the second exhibit in an auction room a year or so ago (I was surprised to find it offered for sale) and of course I bought it. I could think of no more fitting way to end this exhibition than to display this particular item. I hope you will agree it is special.

This month I'm taking a step away from the Museum supplement on DW in World War Two to show a couple of other things.

First, the earliest known jacketed reprint of The Forbidden Territory recently came to market. A 'Fifth Impression', it dates to around February 1933, the month after the book was first published on 3rd January 1933, and is one of the famous seven times that the book was reprinted in seven weeks. As you will see, the front cover is the same as that for the first printing. The back of the jacket quotes some early reviews.

Second, I am adding to the section on DW and Joan Grant (the person who codified DW's beliefs in reincarnation) a couple of exhibits showing how in 1938 DW invited his friends to come to lectures on reincarnation at his house at St Johns Wood Park - and how one of the invitees was MI5's senior operative Maxwell Knight.

This month sees the penultimate entries in the new Museum section in DW in World War Two go live.

The first set of exhibits cover how both DW and Ronald Wingate published wartime memoirs in 1959; DW published - following initial official resistance - 'Stranger Than Fiction', his wartime memoirs up to the date he was put back into uniform, and Wingate publishing an autobiography which skilfully skated over Deception Planning, and which one reviewer wrote could usefully have been extended from one into three volumes

The second set of exhibits cover how the veil of secrecy over Deception Planning was gradually lifted - first with accounts of individual operations like 'Operation Mincemeat' being allowed to leak out, and then how the full story of what went on was allowed to be released, but only in the nineteen-seventies

The final set of exhibits cover how DW's 'The Deception Planners' came to be published in 1980.

I hope you will enjoy all of this; this section of the Museum will conclude either next month or the month after with its final set of exhibits.

This month the new page in the special exhibition on DW's role in World War Two looks at DW's 1958 novel 'Traitors' Gate', which is historically far more important than any but a handful of its readers can have realised.

In it, before anything real was made public, DW involves Gregory Sallust in the deception activities that preceded the invasion of French North Africa in 1941 ('Operation Torch'), and without actually naming the London Controlling Section, he inserts cameos of many of his real life wartime colleagues into the story, and even includes himself!

Altogether, as well as being one of his favourite stories, it is a masterwork in writing about Top Secret operations without anyone cottoning-on to what he was doing. DW's friends (and a couple were even referred to by their real names) must have been vastly amused.

Elsewhwere, I have come across a remarkable survival which will be on interest to DW film buffs.

In amongst some of DW's personal papers I recently found his copy of the brochure which was handed out at the film premiere of The Forbidden Territory in 1934. It is an amazing survival and quite beautiful. I hope you will enjoy it.

Elsewhere, the excellent Mike Ripley has written an article in the latest issue of SHOTS about authors writing during World War Two, and I am delighted to say that top of his list is Dennis Wheatley, who wrote one of the very earliest war-themed wartime novels. To read his article, click on the link to the right.

This month's update brings us nearer to the close of the story of DW's time in the London Controlling Section. The first exhibits detail how Wingate wrote the history of the London Controlling Section, taking over the task from DW.

The remaining exhibits show how the friendships forged in the LCS continued through the rest of the members' lives, explore the high regard that DW had for Winston Churchill, and show how even in the late nineteen-sixties, knowledge of the LCS and its activities was restricted to a tiny few - and that not even the Official Historians were fully aware of its activities or even what the letters 'LCS' stood for.

The New Year starts with some further exhibits in the Virtual Museum's special exhibition on DW in World War Two. As this important exhibition nears completion, the new exhibits cover the working atmosphere in the London Controlling Section, how DW was asked to write the Section's official history and was then taken off the job for making it too lively, and how after D-Day Eisenhower's staff took on the job of deception, the room gradually emptied.

I have also done some tidying-up consequent to the publication of various hitherto unpublished pieces in 'Dennis Wheatley: An Unpublished Miscellany.'

A very Happy New year to all readers of this website!