The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley Dark Masters

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The Devil Is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley

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Please try again later. OK, first the good stuff: Even for someone like myself, born in the 60s, Wheatley is a writer from a bygone age. So much so, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that anyone would consider writing a full-length biography. If, like me, you're a fan of Wheatley, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

It's a good, competent biography of an under-appreciated popular writer. It's inspired me to track down novels I have not yet read and, on more than one occasion, encouraged me to re-read some of his works. Baker has a bad habit of telling the reader about -- or, indeed, outright listing -- everything that he has found. This book is stuffed with irrelevant and often uninteresting details. This is most egregious when it comes to Wheatley's early life.

For example, we get pages from Wheatley's love letters to early girlfriends; these were better left omitted no-one comes out looking good from their adolescent romances. As a consequence, things really don't get going until the First World War. Unfortunately, Baker never really abandons his list-making and consequently chunks of this book are an unnecessary slog. Yes, the devil is in the details we are talking Wheatley here but a good editor would have reduced this text by at least a quarter. Further, although Baker is intelligent enough not to bore the reader with a constant refrain of "oh-my-gorsh-isn't-this-bigoted-old-reactionary-a-terrible-human-being," he nonetheless bangs on about Wheatley's -- by our standards -- politically incorrect views far too often.

That Wheatley, born in the 19th century, didn't share our views of race, class, gender and so on, is pretty bleeding obvious to anyone who has read his novels. Perhaps worse, Baker too often gives pages and pages to Wheatley's critics, most of whom, in addition to being nonentities, were even bigger snobs than Wheatley. This sometimes, however, works against Baker's intentions. Take, for example, the most egregious of these self-righteous ankle-biters, a ponce named Giles Gordon.

Gordon, hostile towards Wheatley because the latter didn't write about gays, tells a patently phony anecdote which simply leaves the reader applauding Wheatley even more. But then this biography often inadvertently reveals that Wheatley was clearly a kinder and better man than Baker portrays. Baker is nonplussed about the "loyalty" Wheatley inspired in people, but it becomes fairly obvious in the course of this work that, whatever his political views, on a personal level, Wheatley treated his fellow human beings decently.

While Baker's grasp of history is generally good especially in the late 19th and early 20th centuries where he has done some reading it is hardly perfect. Much of what he writes about the inter-war British political right is incorrect and his argument that The Devil Rides Out is a defense of appeasement is wholly unpersuasive. Indeed, with respect to Wheatley's works, this reviewer was, more than once, convinced Baker had read a particular novel's blurb rather than the novel itself as there are mistakes to be found in here.

Finally, I was disappointed that Baker declined to make any real effort to trace Wheatley's influence on modern horror, because it is there. Towards the end of the book, Baker discusses how horror was changing at the end of Wheatley's career, mentioning books and films like the Exorcist. Yet it is almost a certainty that Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby -- to cite one of these seminal works -- was inspired by Wheatley's ouvre. Nonetheless, if you are a Wheatley fan, you owe it to yourself to read this book.

The Devil Is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley by Phil Baker

Wheatley's own autobiographies are notoriously unreliable as autobiographies usually are and this work does a more than half decent job of capturing both the man and the times and what times! Three and a half stars then, rather than three Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Dennis Wheatley was a highly successful British author who was popular during much of the 20th century. He focused on occult and historical novels. There is some, but very limited, information on how he actually set about the process of writing the books.

A good picture of Wheatley's personality is drawn - humane, reactionary, complex, and perhaps a little sad. This was a decent read because of my previous familiarity with the author's works, but the narrative flow wasn't comparable to say Caro or Manchester. The first third of the book before Wheatley started to write was rather slow going. The illustrations in the Kindle version are small and low quality - I assume they're much better in the print version. It's fascinating that Wheatley's greatest work of fiction was his own life. There are interesting tit-bits about sexual life in the first world war and twenties, about the first world war itself, about propaganda operations in the second and wealthy upper middle class lifestyles.

However, what we really want to read about is his occult literature which gets its first treatment only after two fifths of the book has passed but the book adds little to what we intuit. The truth is that Wheatley was an energetic and creative man but no great writer. He simply hit on a formula that was able to latch on to the repressed fantasies, desires and fears of mid-century Britain.

The 'Devil Rides out' remains his masterpiece and possibly that of the Hammer Studio output. Wheatley's place in British cultural history is assured but none of that makes him great or good. Still, Phil Baker writes in a clear and easy-going style and, with only very occasional confusions and minor repetitions in over pages, the book is readable and useful.

Sep 05, Phil rated it it was amazing. This is a compelling biography, meticulously researched, expertly written and a must-read for any Dennis Wheatley fans, closeted or not. Or anyone simply interested in London high society through the first half of the 20th century. We meet a succession of exotic characters, from Aleister Crowley to the original model for M in James Bond. And repellent as Wheatley can be at times in his anachronistic world view, you can't help but warm to him, as the author clearly has.

Highly This is a compelling biography, meticulously researched, expertly written and a must-read for any Dennis Wheatley fans, closeted or not. Highly recommended, and as a result of this, I shall be picking up the author's biography of Austin Osman Spare in the near future. Oct 21, Neil Davies rated it liked it. The facts are interesting, as is Wheatley's life and writing, but this book was spoiled to a large degree by the obvious dislike of the author for its subject matter. That Wheatley was not a great writer of literature has never been denied, least of all by Wheatley himself, but to constantly refer to this time and again and to continually use snide phrasing when talking about his character just got irritating.

I would have preferred a biography that was unbiased either for or against. This was v The facts are interesting, as is Wheatley's life and writing, but this book was spoiled to a large degree by the obvious dislike of the author for its subject matter. This was very much angled against. Saved by the subject matter, not by the writing. Andrew Wiseman rated it it was amazing Jan 10, Kasper Opstrup rated it really liked it Apr 14, Carl Morano rated it it was amazing Dec 25, David H rated it really liked it Oct 16, Stewart Home rated it it was amazing Dec 25, Luke Honey rated it it was amazing Apr 23, Graham Andrews rated it really liked it Aug 07, Richard Baker rated it it was amazing Sep 09, Christopher Ranson rated it really liked it Sep 19, Richard Kaczynski rated it it was amazing Jan 19, Crisp rated it it was amazing Oct 20, Reg Pellow rated it it was amazing Nov 15, Well-researched and throughout, and also quite entertaining to read!

David Miller rated it it was amazing Sep 30, Karl Burnett rated it really liked it May 16, Paul rated it really liked it Feb 05, Gareth rated it really liked it May 28, Ian Gee rated it really liked it Mar 19, James rated it it was amazing May 20, William Mills rated it liked it Sep 06, Sep 22, Chris rated it really liked it. Thirty years after his death Wheatley is being re-evaluated; his books, once seemingly forgotten, are now back in print, and this biography helps to situate him in his time and place.

Baker doesn't shy away from his failings - Wheatley was no great prose writer and indeed some of his books were fairly dreadful; and by the s when he achieved renewed fame his form of clubland High Toryism was very, very anachronistic, belonging really to the prewar world. Think about that for a while. And Wheatley the sex-positive bon viveur who shagged his way through World War I; whose racy prose was backed up with a hedonistic life, and who was in a strange way a democratiser - the middle-class son of a South London wine merchant who decided that the aristocratic way of life was for him.

Twice married, one son and six grandchildren , he became a country squire before retreating to a central London house with his wife Joan.

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Although he also wrote present-day and historical thrillers, it's for the Black Magic novels that Wheatley is remembered and accordingly much is made of his associations with Aleister Crowley not very much by all accounts; both Crowley and Wheatley were rampant self-mythologisers and as a result the truth is hard to figure out and Montague Summers, and his dealings with the press and youthful fans in his later years when the films of his books "The Devil Rides Out" in particular achieved success. There's also a chapter about his 'Letter to Posterity', a rant against Stalinism and unbridled Trades Unionism that was featured in a television programme and taken rather out of context a few years ago.

Wheatley however, unlike some authors of his era - who fell for Soviet propaganda - had been to the Soviet Bloc and seen what a horror it was. You can hardly blame him for telling the truth as he saw it. Was he a Fascist as some people have been known to claim? No, though he did know fascists, and he certainly didn't fawn towards Hitler. Some of his friends really were Jewish. Was he a xenophobe?

No, though at times he displays the prevalent racism of his era.