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The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley
Author: Phil Baker
Cover design: Jonathan Barker
One of the giants of popular fiction, with total sales of around fifty million books, Dennis Wheatley held twentieth-century Britain spellbound. His Black Magic novels like The Devil Rides Out created an oddly seductive and luxurious vision of Satanism, but in reality he was as interested in politics as occultism. Wheatley was closely involved with the secret intelligence community, and this powerfully researched study shows just how directly this drove his work, from his unlikely warnings about the menace of Satanic Trade Unionism to his role in a British scheme to engineer a revival of Islam.
Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material, Phil Baker examines Wheatley’s key friendship with a fraudster named Eric Gordon Tombe, and uncovers the full story of his sensational 1922 murder. Baker also explores Wheatley’s relationships with occult figures such as Rollo Ahmed, Aleister Crowley, and the Reverend Montague Summers, the shady priest and demonologist who inspired the memorably evil character of Canon Copely-Syle, in To The Devil – A Daughter.
Like Sax Rohmer and John Buchan, Wheatley has now moved from being perceived as dated to
positively vintage, and this groundbreaking biography offers a major reassessment of his significance and status.
Reviews
- Kevin Jackson in The Sunday Times
- Geoffrey Elborn on amazon.coi.uk
- S.E.G.Hopkin in The Spectator
- Luke Jennings in The Observer
- Peter Parker in The Independent 'Fifty Best Winter Reads'
- Michael Gove in The Times
- Michael Barber in The Tablet
- Geoffrey Elborn in The Tablet's Christmas Books
- Chris Petit in The Guardian
- Non-fiction for Christmas from Christopher Fowler's Blog
- Ronald Hutton in The Times Literary Supplement
- Sir Peter Stothard in The Best of Brit Lit in the Daily Beast
- James Doyle in Bookmunch
- Andrew Lycett in The Literary Review
- Rowan Pelling in Books of the Year in The Daily Telegraph
- Peter Lewis in The Daily Mail
- H.E. Taylor in The Anthony Powell Society Newsletter
- The Oldie
- Peter Burton in Beige Magazine
- Chap Magazine
- Jay Rath in The Fortean Times
- Mick Herron in The Bookdealer
- David Langford in Murky Depths
RRP: £25.00
No. of pages: 699
Publication date: 31 October, 2009
Re-print date: unspecified
Catalogue/ISBN no: 978 1 903517 75 8
Dedalus World Rights
Buy from: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com