Phil Baker – The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley

Phil Baker – The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley (Dedalus, October 31st, 2009)

 

Cover design: Jonathan Barker

Blurb
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Drawing on a wealth of unpublished material, Phil Baker examines Wheatley’s key friendship with a fraudster named Eric Gordon Tombe, and uncovers the full story of his sensational 1922 murder.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.

 

 

Peter Haining – The Black Magic Omnibus

Peter Haining – The Black Magic Omnibus (Robson, 1976: Futura, 1977)

I’ve never seen the Robson edition but the contents were recycled over two Futura paperbacks the following year and its a strong selection, the first volume perhaps moreso than the second.

The Black Magic Omnibus: Volume 1 – ed. Peter Haining (Futura, 1977)

Introduction – Peter Haining
Prologue – Dennis Wheatley

Roger Zelazny – The Salvation Of Faust
Dorothy Pitkin Buck – Transgressor’s Way
August Derleth – Lesandro’s Familiar
Manly Wade Wellman – The Liers In Wait
Seabury Quinn – Is The Devil A Gentleman?
Margaret Irwin – Monsieur Seeks A Wife
Eric Frank Russell – The Rythm Of The Rats
Jerome Bixby – The Magic Potion
Robert Arthur – The Mirror Of Cagliostro
Aleister Crowley – The Dream Circean
M. P. Shiel – The Primate Of The Rose
H. P. Lovecraft – Witches’ Hollow
Shirley Jackson – The Daemon Lover
Ursula Le Guin – April In Paris
Fritz Leiber – Cry Witch!

The Black Magic Omnibus: Volume 2 – ed. Peter Haining (Futura, 1977)

Introduction – Peter Haining

Robert Graves – An Appointment For Candlemass
Samuel M. Clawson – Double Hex
Gaston Leroux – In Letters Of Fire
Hans Heinz Ewers – Vampire’s Prey
Feodor Sologub – Invoker Of The Beast
William Sambrot – Night Of The Leopard
Jorge Luis Borges – The Circular Ruins
W. B. Seabrook – The Wedding Guests
Avram Davidson – The Power Of Every Root
Richard Matheson – By Appointment Only
MacKinlay Kantor – The Witch Doctor Of Rosy Ridge
Joan Fleming – Writer’s Witch
Larry M. Harris – The Power Of The Job
Gordon MacCreagh – Dr. Muncing, Exorcist

Epilogue – Ray Bradbury

Peter Haining – The Satanists

Peter Haining (ed.) – The Satanists (Neville Spearman, 1969, Mayflower, 1971)

Peter Haining – Modern Satanism: The Facts

Montague Summers – The Satanic Mass
E. F. Benson – The Sanctuary
Algernon Blackwood – Ancient Sorceries
H. P. Lovecraft – The Festival
August Derleth – The Watcher From The Sky
Dennis Wheatley – The Black Magician (extract from “The Satanist”)
Aleister Crowley – The Initiation
Margaret Irwin – The Book
Cleve Cartmill – No News Today
Robert Bloch – Spawn Of The Dark One (AKA Sweet Sixteen)

Black Magic Battle In The Church (short article from ‘The Sun’)

Haining’s essay is pretty sober in comparison to the mighty A. V. Sellwood collaberation “Devil Worship In Britain” (Corgi, 1964)

Francis King – Sexuality, Magic and Perversion

Francis King – Sexuality, Magic And Perversion (Nel, 1972)

There has always been the tradition of a hidden side to sex, the strange belief that the sexual act may be transformed into a supernatural rite.

Francis King here presents a detailed account of his researches into the relationship between sexuality, perversion and magic — touching on Tantric Rituals of India, the sexual alchemists of China and Aleister Crowley’s “Order of Oriental Templars”.

This remarkable book, the first of its kind, also provides a fascinating look at the role played by magical fantasy in hard-core pornography.