This year alas no new Christmas cards have come to light, but we do have two considerable treats in the Museum

When I was creating Room 8, I wrote about the ashtrays Winston Churchill used in one of his midnight conferences in the War Rooms, and which DW by his own admission 'souvenired' the following morning.

I never thought we would see either of these, but one of them has recently come to light and it takes pride of place in this section of the Museum

Similarly, when I was creating Room 9, I little dreamed the letter from The Museum Room 9: Buckingham Palace conveying the King’s thanks for his copy of The Post War Years ‘The Man Who Killed The King’ would come to light, but it has.

My profuse thanks to the eminent but anonymous supplier of these items.

Elsewhere, as promised, and thanks to the further researches of Darren Nugent, I have added several new entries from the Daily Mail to the ‘Articles about DW’ section of the website

I wish a very happy Christmas and New Year to all the site's visitors and to all friends of its cause.

Charles

This month’s update is the Report on the 2014 Convention, held at the Laura Ashley The Manor Hotel in Elstree on 1st November

A great time was had by all who attended, and those who could not make it were sorely missed.

Elsewhere, and thanks to the further researches of Darren Nugent, I have added several new entries to the ‘Articles by DW’ section of the website following Darren’s trawls through the Daily Mail.

Thanks to Darren I will also be adding some further articles to the ‘Articles about DW’ listings next month.

Thanks to the generosity of Richard Humphreys, I am adding two press cuttings to the Museum.

The first relates to DW’s membership of the ‘Gourmets and Connoisseurs Circle’ in the 1930s, to which I am devoting a new page.

The second relates to ‘The Man Who Never Was’ episode in World War II. Here I am adding a press cutting from the Daily Express’s serialisation of the story in 1953; the cutting comes from DW’s personal collection.

Finally, in the section on publications by other members of the Wheatley / Younger clan, with the family’s permission I am adding to the entry for DW’s son Anthony Wheatley a copy of the eulogy given for Anthony by his son Dominic at Anthony’s funeral a short while ago.

I had long thought that we had recorded all the variant Lymington edition covers, but I am delighted to say that Clive Williams has proved me wrong  – the August 1976 reprint of The Shadow of Tyburn Tree has a previously unrecorded cover showing a cased set of duelling pistols, copying the Arrow cover of the same title from 1970. Thank you, Clive !

Steve Whatley’s run of foreign discoveries continues. Whereas before we only knew of one Hungarian Wheatley, now we know of three more. They all date from the 1930s, and are The Devil Rides Out, Contraband (?) and They Found Atlantis (?) In the case of the last two, until someone examines the contents, the precise book is not entirely clear.

Elsewhere I have made a small number of minor corrective textual changes to the site where our knowledge had become more refined over the years.

Those interested in DW's life may also be interested to know that towards  the end of August Steve Whatley, Jean Wilkinson, Nat and I did a 'mini Field Trip' to the Godalming area in Surrey to find the spot where a ten or eleven year old Wheatley was offered a sandwich by General Sir John French, and various other sites of Wheatley interest. A report will follow in due course. 

In the ‘Other Publications’ section, the July and August issues of The Fortean Times carried a two part article about Rollo Ahmed by Christopher Josiffe, which was heavily laden with material relating to DW. Some of this, I am delighted to say, was sourced from this site’s Museum. It’s an excellent article and well worth reading.

In the foreign reprints section, my thanks go to Hillebrand Komrij in the Netherlands for sharing with me a 1937 Utecht edition of Contraband with magnificent cover art by Dennis Weaver.

Also in foreign reprints, my thanks go to Olav Berge Aamodt in Norway for sharing with me a 1937 Norwegian edition of The Fabulous Valley, with some equally stunning artwork, as well as for providing me with some information on various Danish editions.

And finally, a ‘thank you’ to my regular correspondent in New York Jim Devlin for providing me with a copy of DW’s obituary in the 12th November 1977 edition of the New York Times.

Next month we will continue with some more of Steve Whatley’s recent finds and some other material that has recently been sent in.

This month sees the opening of the final Room in the Dennis Wheatley ‘virtual’ Museum, covering the years following his departure from Grove Place to his death. I hope you will enjoy it

Many people have written to me or spoken to me about this part of the website since I first began work on it some six or so years ago, and I am glad it has proved both useful and informative. I have literally been contacted by people from around the globe; not only by those interested in DW himself, but also by those interested in his large array of friends and acquaintances, and all have been kind enough to say they have gleaned something of interest from it. Thank you all for your kind words.

While there is now a Room to cover every era of DW’s life, it is not my intention to leave it static. Like all museums, it must be kept alive, and from time to time I will be adding new exhibits (if you have something worthy of display, please contact me !) and putting on special exhibitions.

Meanwhile I would like to thank all who have helped me create it – those who have helped me track down exhibits, those (such as Phil Baker) who have proof read sections of it, those at 360ss.com who have worked so tirelessly to get things looking exactly as I wanted, and of course the Wheatley family, who have always been full of encouragement.

Thank you all !

This month continues with Steve Whatley’s recent Nordic finds.

First of all we have our first ever Finnish finds; seven titles, and there are surely more to come.

Next we have a Swedish series dating from the 1970s, of the eight Black Magic titles that had then been published, with rather wonderful artwork by Wolfgang Bartsch

Finally, in the Norwegian entries that were posted last month, I have split Argenten I and Argenten II, so bibliophiles can see what each volume looks like.

Steve has a few more additions up his sleeve, which I aim to add to the website next month. Thank you Steve, as always!

As promised last month, this month’s update contains – courtesy of Steve Whatley – our first Norwegian editions; while we had none before, now we have six; with the knowledge there are more to come.

We also have eight recent audio downloads from Audible Studios to record – these courtesy of Barry Cronin.

Thanks to the two of you and others, this is a truly comprehensive site !

This month we have a veritable treasure trove of updates.

A number of hitherto unrecorded early reprints in dust jackets have recently come to light.

They include a 7th thousand of The Forbidden Territory, a 10th thousand of The Devil Rides Out (courtesy of Kevin Pearce), a 15th thousand of the same (courtesy of James Hallgate of Lucius Books), and a 17th thousand of The Black Baroness (again courtesy of  Kevin Pearce).

Meanwhile, Steve Whately has found a new Danish edition (a 1955 edition of The Shadow of Tyburn Tree) and three new Swedish titles – The Ka of Gifford Hillary (1976), The Gourmet Crook Book (1955; published some 11 years after the English version), and my personal favourite, a 1951 reprint of The Forbidden Territory, with a cover illustration showing the Duke and Rex in the catacombs – the first cover illustration to use that episode, to the best of my knowledge.

More is yet to come; Steve has also found a number of Norwegian Wheatleys – these will form the centrepiece of next month’s update !

This month sees the opening of the ninth room in the site’s ‘virtual Museum’ - which covers DW’s life in the years from 1945 to 1968.

One more room (of regular exhibits) to go !

While preparations are underway to launch the ninth room in the virtual Museum, this month’s update is a ‘mini’ update, but an important one.

As enthusiasts have long been aware, in 1937 the Daily Mail serialised a Dennis Wheatley story with the title ‘Blue Murder’. No story with this title was ever published in book form, and there was speculation as to what it was. As he relates in a recent Library post, Darren Nugent has visited the British Library and confirmed it is an abridged version of ‘Uncharted Seas’, but, interestingly and unusually, published some nine weeks ahead of the book’s publication date.

I have updated the first edition details for ‘Uncharted Seas’, and also taken the opportunity to insert the closing dates of the Daily Mail serialisations of three other novels – ‘The Devil Rides Out’, ‘They Found Atlantis’ and ‘Contraband’.

I have also made note – again thanks to Darren – of a previously unrecorded article by DW. On the day preceding its serialisation  of ‘They Found Atlantis’, the Daily Mail printed an article by DW entitled ‘Where is Atlantis  ?’

Thanks to the careful researches of Steve Whatley, I am adding a new section on Dennis Wheatley’s speeches to the ‘Bibliography of all things Wheatley’ section.

Elsewhere, Press coverage in the wake of Bloomsbury’s re-launch of DW’s books continues, and the December issue of ‘Discover your History’ magazine carried an article by Matthew Coniam on ’Rediscovering the books of Dennis Wheatley’.

Over the Christmas break, Kevin Pearce has discovered some hitherto unlisted early hardback reprints. I’ve updated the printed records where necessary and some scans will hopefully appear in a future update.