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!

The main part of this month's update is the report on the 2023 Convention, which took place at Dartington Hall in Devon on 20th-22nd October.

Next year's Convention is provisionally pencilled in for Dartington Hall on 25-27 October 2024, but this is subject to confirmation.

Elsewhere, as it's the Christmas season, I have included one Christmas piece; the screen (now sadly badly in need of restoration) on which DW pasted a selection of cards from some of his most prestigious wartime friends.

Elsewhere, I see that DW's copy of Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs Dalloway' is on offer at a New York bookseller for $55,000 (£43,000). Not a bad return (over 28,000%) for the person who bought it from Blackwell's in 1979 for £150.

Season's greetings to all supporters of the website.

Charles

This month's update is the Field Trip report on the trip ten of us went on in July this year to explore Traben-Trarbach; the beautiful town on the Moselle in Germany where DW spent several months learning the wine trade in 1913 before the world order changed with the advent of World War One.

This month completes the display of material kept by Mr Bell from his days with The London Controlling Section. Mr Bell arranged the iconic photo- shoot of the Section, and kept what as far as I know is the only surviving original copy, autographed by three of its members. He also kept another 'take', which as far as I know has never before been displayed.

When we talk about the London Controlling Section, we normally discuss Johnny Bevan, DW, and the other main members of the Section (Messrs Peteval, Wingate, Arbuthnott, Gordon Clark, Morley and Sir Reginald Hoare), but various other officers and an eminent scientist joined them on assignment from time to time. In addition, once things got going, they had secretaries and civil servants in support, and as time went on, Johnny Bevan acquired a personal assistant in Lady Jane Pleydell-Bouverie.

We hear little of the support staff, which is a pity. I was therefore absolutely delighted when a relative of one of these contacted me a while ago, and - having seen the material on LCS on the site - asked if I would be interested to see his collection of his relative's papers.

I naturally said 'yes', and I am enormously grateful to him for not only showing it to me, but for allowing me to exhibit the material on the site.

I hope what I am showing in this month's update (more will follow next month) will be a fitting tribute to his relative, Mr W V Bell, who clearly liked DW

Elsewhere, DW fans are about to be able to read a story in which he had a hand for the first time since it was serialised in various newspapers in the early 1950s. In 'Sequence Sinister', which is being republished as part of series six of the ‘Bodies from the Library' series edited by Tony Medawar and published by Collins Crime Club, DW and four other authors took turns to write episodes of a crime thriller, handing it on to each other ‘blind' to carry on as they saw fit. DW wrote the fourth of the five sections, and I hope readers will find it enjoyable when it comes out shortly.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two with a résumé of the deception involving the (non-existent) First U.S. Army Group (FUSAG).

It then looks at the deception using ‘Monty’s double’, including a piece from DW’s unpublished memoirs in which he discloses that - having taken the actor Clifton James up in an aeroplane to check he wasn’t airsick - on the way back to London, DW took Clifton James on a lengthy detour over to Lymington, so as to have a look at the house he had just purchased.

In July, ten enthusiasts enjoyed a field trip to Traben-Trarbach in Germany, where DW spent the summer and autumn of 1913 learning the wine trade, and we also visited nearby Bernkastel, which featured in ‘Julie’s Lovers’. A field trip report will appear on the website after the October Convention.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. The exhibits start with an account of the various security classifications which were used by the likes of DW, and ends with an amusing and at the same time absolutely hair-raising account by U.S. Colonel Bill Baumer of Bevan’s trip with him to Moscow by high-altitude plane in January 1944 to ’sell’ the Allied deception proposals to the Russians.

Elsewhere, and for those more interested in DW’s books than his life, I have long contemplated putting a ’Rarity Ratings List’ on the website. This month I am doing so, and I hope it will be of interest to bibliophiles. My thanks go to James Hallgate of Lucius Books and Jonathan Frost of Frost Rare Books for reviewing the list and giving me their comments on it before it went ’live’. Ultimately, of course, all the opinions expressed therein are mine.

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. This month’s exhibits take us up to the initial deception planning for the Normandy invasions - which took place 79 years ago this month, and include a rather nice table courtesy of The National Archives showing how false stories were fed to the enemy on a systematic basis by double agents - including an agent very well known to DW.

Elsewhere, May’s issue of ‘The Book Cover Review’ contained a superb article by Graham Rawle on DW’s ‘Murder off Miami’. It begins ‘I can’t tell you who was murdered off Miami or who the murderer was, but as an artefact this book is incredible.’

This month continues the saga of DW in World War Two. This month’s exhibits include the story of how DW committed forgery to bring his friend and colleague James Arbuthnott back to London from Cairo; of how even a general needed a pass to see DW; and how both DW and Wingate missed out on a whisky-and-soda with Churchill.

I hope readers will find these accounts amusing.

Elsewhere, thanks to the diligent researches of Steve Whatley, I can fine-tune the publication date of ‘The Seven Ages of Justerinis’ - I am now marking it as March 1949.

This month I am continuing the story of DW’s adventures in World War Two; beginning with an account of DW’s typically friendly relationship with the man who supplied Churchill with his secret information during his ‘wilderness years’, Sir Desmond Morton; looking at DW’s techniques for garnering information that was supposed to be withheld from him; looking at DW’s strongly-held view that the invasion of Sicily in 1943 was thoroughly misguided, and finishing with a look at DW’s ‘footprint’ in the National Archives.

I hope readers will find these accounts - many of them based on unpublished material - interesting.

This month I am switching back to DW’s literary output.

One of DW’s more unusual series of books was his ‘The Seven Ages of Justerini’s’ and its two sequels, written for his friends at the Royal warrant holding wine merchants, Justerini and Brooks.

To see what DW wrote about these books in never published portions of his memoirs, click on the links to the right.

I’d also like to thank Mike Ripley for his exceedingly nice review of ‘Julie’s Lovers’ in the latest edition of his awe-inspiring ‘Getting Away With Murder’ column in SHOTSMAG.

This month continues the special exhibition in the Museum on DW in World War Two, with new sections on Operation Torch and on DW’s skills at what we would now call ‘networking’. The Operation Torch exhibits include some fascinating material from the National Archives showing the operational timeline for the various deception schemes.

As in previous months, much of this month’s material is being laid before the public for the very first time.

I have also updated ‘Forthcoming Events’ in the ‘Conventions and Field Trips’ section with details of this summer’s field trip to Traben-Trarbach in Germany, where DW spent time before World War One learning the wine trade, and which is in one of the areas depicted in ‘Julie’s Lovers’.

In addition to the above, I have made minor textual changes to update various reference sections.

To start the New Year, I am continuing to unveil pages about DW’s unique career in World War Two in the Museum.

In the first of the new pages, I explore DW’s relationship with his first boss, Oliver Stanley - a very eminent and important figure.

The next page looks at DW’s ‘Deception Bible’ - a document which is referred to in ‘The Deception Planners’, but the survival of which only came to light in the last few months.

Thirdly I say a little more about the second Controlling Officer, and the man who is generally credited with turning around the fortunes of London-based deception - Johnny Bevan.

Elsewhere, and thanks to an alert from Kevin Pearce, I am able to identify that Johnny Bevan was one of the recipients of DW’s special limited edition of ‘The Devil And All His Works’ in 1977, and I have done a little tidying up of various other references on the website.

Last and by no means least, I wish a very Happy New Year to all this site’s readership!

As is the site’s custom, this month’s update has a Christmas theme.

In the ‘cards sent to DW’ section I have added a card sent to DW by Oliver Stanley, the man who recruited DW into Deception Planning and under whom DW first served in uniform in World War Two.

Oliver Stanley was an eminent figure. When DW met him, he had already served as Secretary of State for War, and he has since been ranked as ‘One of the best Prime Ministers we never had’. Stanley had a reputation for a keen intellect and for not suffering fools gladly; so his recruitment of, and friendship with DW says a lot.

Under the Christmas theme I am also incorporating into the main Christmas section a copy of ‘Murder off Miami’ in special Christmas packaging. This copy travelled a long way - it was sent out to Mexico for Christmas 1936! This copy comes courtesy of Hillebrand Komrij.

October saw some fresh performances of Colin McCourt’s musical version of ‘The Devil Rides Out’, and a group of us travelled to Manchester to see it. I’ve written a review; click on the link on the right to read it.

Elsewhere, having unveiled my limited edition of DW’s first ever novel ‘Julie’s Lovers’ at the October Convention, I am starting to update various parts of the website to take this ‘new’ novel into account.

My thanks to all the supporters of this site for the interest and support they have given me in this and previous years, and my best wishes for a happy and prosperous Christmas and for 2023

Our Fifteenth Convention was held at Dartington Hall in Devon on 14th-16th October. To see the Convention Report, please click on the link on the right.

To see the Convention Memorabilia, please click on the second link on the right.

The Sixteenth Dennis Wheatley Convention is likely to take place on Saturday 21st October 2023. The venue has yet to be confirmed, but is likely to be either The Manor, Elstree, or Dartington Hall. Please watch the Conventions section of this site for further announcements.

A Field Trip to Traben-Trarbach is also under consideration for July 2023.

I am pleased to say that feedback on the start of the latest special exhibition - giving more details of DW's activities in World War Two - has been very encouraging.

This month I am continuing the exhibition with two more pages; one on the origins of British WW2 Deception (at least, as written about by Wheatley and Wingate), and the other on DW's induction course at Uxbridge. This I found particularly amusing, and the information and exhibits on this page have never before been made public.

This month, I am making a start to a special exhibition in the site's Museum giving further details of DW's unique contribution in World War Two.

Since DW considered this the most important part of his life, and since his work had considerable historic significance, it seems appropriate to enhance what is already displayed with some additional exhibits.

Hardly anyone who has written about DW has searched for material about his World War Two activities in The National Archives, so I began by commissioning a professional historian to see what he could find there, and I am grateful to that institution for allowing me to reproduce the best part of thirty documents, many of historic interest.

I am supplementing these with large tracts of hitherto unpublished data from DW's two earliest accounts of his war-work which never reached 'The Deception Planners', and with some of the voluminous correspondence that took place both during and after the war between DW and his wartime colleagues. None of this has been seen before by more than two or three people.

Because of their quantity, I will be adding these exhibits to the Museum over a number of months, so those interested can either see them as they go up in stages, or wait and view the exhibition as a whole when it is finished.

Suffice to say, whichever way you choose to view this material, I hope you will enjoy it, and that it will bring to life the Top Secret work that DW and his colleagues did so effectively to mislead the enemy and to minimise Allied casualties during the conflict.

First this month I am adding two 1930s/1940s Dutch covers, both courtesy of Hillebrand Komrij, to whom I am most grateful. One - that of an early 'Forbidden Territory' has one of my favourite jacket illustrations for the title.

Secondly, I am adding nine further entries to the list of DW's speeches in the 'Bibliography of all things Wheatley' section, including a further five speeches that DW gave on behalf of the war effort in early 1939. All come thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Steve Wheatley, to whom I am always most grateful.

In this update I'm making two additions to the exhibition in the Museum on DW's remarkable library; of books by already-featured authors which have recently come on the market.

The first is a finely inscribed copy of Baroness Orczy's 'The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel' in a rather wonderful dust jacket, while the second is a copy of James Hilton's 'Knight Without Armour' with a very nice inscription showing how much Hilton enjoyed DW's first novel.

The first of these is shown courtesy of Peter Harrington, who are currently offering it at £4,500. The second was recently sold by Peter Harrington for £1,500.

I have also taken this month as an opportunity to update some of the material in the 'Bibliography of all things Wheatley' section so that it remains in synch with all the other sections.

Once again, with thanks to Nic Minas, I am able to add a further Australian edition to the 'Wheatley Around The World' section – a 1964 Australian edition of 'Quiver of Horror'.

This month I am also adding a further two books to the list of those where the working titles were different from the published titles; 'The Dark Secret of Josephine' was originally going to be called 'The Secret Marriage', and 'The Deception Planners' was originally going to be called 'Secrets of the War Cabinet' until Anthony Lejeune amended the title. My thanks to James Hallgate of Lucius Books for the first of these two entries.

Finally, I am adding four further speeches made by DW to the 'Speeches' section:

A talk about 'Strange Experiences' for charity at Admiralty House in 1938; a speech at the annual banquet of The Licensed Victuallers Association in the same year; a talk on 'Book Collecting' (DW's choice of subject) to The Eton Literary Society in 1949 (his second speech to them); and a speech that DW gave at a debate at The Oxford Union in 1955.

As can be seen, DW spoke in some pretty impressive places, although I could have preferred for the final two that he had spoken at Winchester and Cambridge !

This month, with my thanks to the excellent staff at 360ss.com, I have finished updating the section on Ebooks. If you find I have missed anything out, please let me know!

Elsewhere, we have a few further foreign editions to add this month and next month. We will kick off with our first ever Bangladesh edition, courtesy of Darren. I am given to understand that if this one is successful, it may be followed by others.

This month, with my thanks to the excellent staff at 360ss.com, I have continued updating the section on Ebooks.

I have also added a hitherto unrecorded reprint of 'Sixty Days To Live' (a '15th thousand') to the entries for that title.

This month I've added to the section on books and articles about DW two excellent private volumes by Jonathan McColl. The first, 'Allusions' is a kind of 'DW Companion', which Jonathan has been compiling and updating over the course of many decades, and which now runs to almost 300 pages. If you want to know what DW wrote in an introduction, or about the background to a historical person, place or event that is mentioned in a DW novel, you can bet with confidence that it will be in there.

Jonathans's latest venture is a similar volume recoding all DW's map endpapers and plans in a single volume.

I admire Jonathan for his never-failing enthusiasm and dedication.

Elsewhere, over the next few months I'll be updating the section on Ebooks; I've let it lag behind a little while I log and preserve older items which might otherwise be lost to posterity.

I am also working on a further special exhibition in the virtual Museum; this time looking at DW's unique work in World War II, and looking in particular at the corroboration by others of what he himself said of his war work. I've accordingly noted that the new room is 'under construction'.

A small collection of letters between DW and autograph collector Eileen Cond came up for auction in November, and in it there was a particularly interesting letter in which DW discussed the 1934 film of The Forbidden Territory.

If anyone watched the film and found it rather hard to follow, we now know why. The original length of the film was 11,000 feet but, that being too long a film for the cinema audiences of the day, it was cut down to 7,000 feet before release; and then when it was shown in the U.S.A., it was cut by a further eight minutes!

The sections on the film have been updated accordingly, and a link is now given in each so you can read DW's own account of the cutting in his letter.

In the same auction there was also an interesting letter about the pre-publication serialisation of 'The Devil Rides Out' in the Daily Mail, which I have added to the relevant page, and which puts the serialisation in nice context.

Elsewhere, I would like to cordially thank Nic Minas for letting me have details of three more Arrow Australia printings, and of a Singapore printing of 'The Australia Devil and all his Works' – our first appearance of that locality!

For many, January is the traditional month when they start to plan their annual (or more frequent) holidays. This therefore seems a good time to add to the Museum a list of DW's travels.

Compiled mostly with access to the largely unpublished final volume of his memoirs, it illustrates how widely DW travelled in the days before mass tourism, and even now there can be few people who can claim to have visited as many countries as DW did – he set foot in a total of sixty-one countries.

And fortunately he did not, unlike us, have to worry about the current vagaries of 'red lists' and of hotel quarantines...

Interestingly, while he used his trips to provide 'local colour' for many of his novels, when DW wrote about countries that he had never visited (Russia in 'The Forbidden Territory', Turkey in 'The Eunuch of Stamboul' etc.), he was still pretty convincing.

To see the list, either click on the top link to visit the relevant page in the Museum, or click on the link to the right to go straight to the list.

I am also pleased to report that Steve Whatley has discovered another illustrated cover for one of DW's foreign reprints; this time the cover for the Spanish edition of 'The Shadow of Tyburn Tree'. But this time, DW may have been a little less pleased than usual; if you look closely, his Spanish publishers have managed to mis-spell his name...

A very Happy New Year to all this site's readership and contributors!