The Library

I find myself very much in agreement with the main points of Nigel's views here, except the first - that reading 'The Devil Rides Out' will convey a warning about dabbling in the blacker side of the esoteric arts. When I first read it - at a very tender age- I found the whole thing so fascinating th...

I must qualify my answer of "maybe" by a matter of definition (webmaster: refers to poll, now removed) . I have no doubt that DW is telling the truth when he says that he has never actually participated in a magical ceremony, black or white. However, one can "dabble" in the theor...

If the Duke has just turned 18 at the beginning of PRISONER IN THE MASK, he must have been born in 1875. At the time of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, he'd be an astonishingly active 60. (I imagine DW pictured him in his early 50s, at most; you can't get too crazy about these dates.) When he dies, at the end...

I agree that the exercise of working out a "timescale" for DW's work is difficult in the extreme. It is complicated by the fact that in many cases DW does not give any indication of the year the story takes place. In some cases, of course, the events taking place in the background make it ...

I feel this comes down to a matter of definitions. There is a school of thought feels that feels that a work that tells a coherent, accesible story is automatically disqualified as "good literature", and that a story must be "difficult" and enigmatic in order to be regarded as se...