Search found 92 matches

by Cibator
Thu 28 Mar, 2013 05:38:58
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Bloomsbury to re-publish Dennis Wheatley
Replies: 43
Views: 108426

Remains to be seen, of course, to what extent the texts have been fiddled around with. There's an awful lot of ideas and language in them that would never pass muster nowadays with the Thought Police. Or me, for that matter.
by Cibator
Sun 3 Feb, 2013 07:23:29
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Boxing Day and Bob Rothwell ...
Replies: 26
Views: 44958

Shane, you might enjoy the following extract from a letter published yesterday in the Dominion Post (Wellington's main newspaper). It was written in reply to a favourable comment on pinot noir by our top movie star Sam Neill, who also on the quiet owns a small vineyard and winery out here. Pinot noi...
by Cibator
Fri 11 Jan, 2013 09:47:07
Forum: The Dark Secret Of Josephine
Topic: The Dark Secret of Josephine
Replies: 2
Views: 36293

I recall my first attempt at reading this when I was around 18 years of age. It had a curious and (for teenage boys) unusual result. The constant onward surge of events, fights, hairsbreadth escapes and of course grisly deaths ultimately proved too much for me. It wasn't the blood and gore itself as...
by Cibator
Fri 11 Jan, 2013 09:31:10
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Boxing Day and Bob Rothwell ...
Replies: 26
Views: 44958

But the real problem with champagne is that the feeble, watery stuff needs to be mixed with something to be of much use. Sounds as though you're much of a mind, Shane, with Count Alexis Orlof in The Shadow of Tyburn Tree , when Roger Brook and Natalia Andreovna plump for champagne after joining him...
by Cibator
Fri 21 Dec, 2012 20:54:49
Forum: Off-Topic
Topic: Apocalypse? No.
Replies: 4
Views: 24249

Apocalypse? No.

Well, whatever the Mayans might have predicted, they obviously forgot to include little old NZ in it. We're still here, and thriving. How's everybody else? Halloo-oo-oo ......
by Cibator
Mon 17 Sep, 2012 04:23:56
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Alternate Versions of Wheatley Novels
Replies: 12
Views: 14739

Mystery solved! That line is in THOTJ, but not where I'd thought it was! It comes during the temporary reconciliation with Helmuth recounted in TJ's journal entry for Monday 10 June (p178 in the Heron). I'd skipped over some of the less interesting passages during my re-reading, and that was among t...
by Cibator
Sun 16 Sep, 2012 11:33:46
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Alternate Versions of Wheatley Novels
Replies: 12
Views: 14739

Well, well; the plot thickens, as the old cliche has it. Thanks Jim and ericmocata, for doing those look-ups. Seems I'll have to dig a bit deeper somewhere, some time. Unfortunately, the small town I live in doesn't really have the necessary facilities, so it could be a while. But I'm pretty certain...
by Cibator
Sat 15 Sep, 2012 12:22:38
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Alternate Versions of Wheatley Novels
Replies: 12
Views: 14739

OK Jim - the nearest diary date is Monday 22 June. The passage I'm referring to is a page or two before that. To be more exact, page 259 in my Heron. (While I'm here, I'll just remark that DW is not the only author to be subjected to this sort of treatment. Several of the Sherlock Holmes stories hav...
by Cibator
Wed 12 Sep, 2012 23:15:33
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Alternate Versions of Wheatley Novels
Replies: 12
Views: 14739

Funny you should ask this, ericmocata. I'm currently re-reading the Heron reprint of The Haunting of Toby Jugg , and have just got to the point where Toby has split the bottle of champagne with Sally after using it to whack Helmuth on the scone. And unless I'm much mistaken, there used to be a line ...
by Cibator
Wed 29 Aug, 2012 11:49:57
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Early Wheatley Book Pricing
Replies: 6
Views: 8740

According to an automatic calculating facility available at:

http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare ... evalue.php

- the equivalent cost of that book nowadays would be around £17.80.
by Cibator
Mon 13 Aug, 2012 11:38:19
Forum: General Topics
Topic: The Black Art
Replies: 4
Views: 8322

I bought my paperback edition of this (published by Arrow, of course) over 40 years ago, at a time when the occult was starting to become more widely written about than previously - part of the general loosening-up that was under way in Britain from the mid-60s on. But it's many years now since I ga...
by Cibator
Sun 12 Aug, 2012 12:10:43
Forum: General Topics
Topic: Treasure Trove
Replies: 7
Views: 9645

Treasure Trove

Hi folks

I hope it’s OK for me to use the site to share this special moment.

Despite my interest in the works of Dennis Wheatley, the number of copies of his works that I actually owned was never very great – no more than ten or twelve at most. This number fell abruptly to zero when I emigrated to New Zealand in 1977, some six months before DW himself set out on another “interesting journeyâ€￾ of his own.

Since then, I’d bought the odd volume at jumble sales and second-hand bookshops, but as time went by they became increasingly hard to find and progressively pricier. Plus my nearest-and-(very)dearest’s lack of enthusiasm for DW often saw me persuaded, after a time, to pitch out such ones as I did manage to acquire.

And so, up to two days ago, the total muster was a solitary Roger Brook and the Quest of Julian Day.

Then yesterday, attracted out of the house by an unseasonably sunny day (it’s winter right now, down here) we visited a nearby town where a book fair had been advertised. Making the rounds of the tables ..... what was this?? Not one, but two large cartons, each of them crammed with Heron reprints of the master’s works! And most remarkable of all, a large printed ticket saying “Make an Offerâ€￾!!

Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust himself, fronted with a hitherto-undiscovered hoard of pre-1914 Mentzendorff kummel, could hardly have been more delighted.

It was by this time about four hours after the opening, with another two to go. Chances were, no-one else had been sufficiently interested to put in a bid, nor was going to be. But how could I persuade my dearest that this would be a good thing for me to do? After all, we’ve been trying to reduce the number of books in the house, not add to them. Especially in such quantities. The problem seemed insoluble. I took it on the chin, and mentally kissed the opportunity good-bye.

And then she announced her intention to head down the street and call on an acquaintance in a shop some distance away. Leaving me to go back to the car with our other purchases from the fair. This task I executed with all speed. And then ....

Back I went to the fair. Offered ten dollars for the whole consignment! They took it, as the saying goes, with both hands!! Even helped me back to the car with it all.

So there we are. Forty-nine Heron reprints, all in fairly good condition, at a cost of about 20 cents a volume. All the De Richleaus, all the Gregory Sallusts and all the Roger Brooks. Plus the three Julian Days and the out-of-series occult novels. Some six or eight titles are missing, but mostly of the Linda Lee / Star of Ill Omen degree of importance.

Now all I’ve got to do is somehow tell my dearest, and convince her that this is one lot of books I’m not going to be persuaded to sling out .....
by Cibator
Sat 14 Jan, 2012 08:19:13
Forum: The Man Who Missed The War
Topic: The Man Who Missed The War
Replies: 4
Views: 57080

This has always been among my top ten Wheatleys, possibly because it features another of those admirable and courageous heroines that DW, unusually for the time, so often had at the centre of the action. Gloria (nee Mary Smith) is a right little horror to begin with, but matures over the course of t...
by Cibator
Fri 30 Dec, 2011 22:44:21
Forum: Curtain of Fear
Topic: Curtain of Fear
Replies: 7
Views: 47507

I've been in a theatre box, just the once, when we were visiting back in Blighty in 1982. The play was so-so (I forget the title; it was about Eva Braun and Clara Petacci socialising together while their men conferred offstage), but had Glenda Jackson in it, so we decided on the spur of the moment t...
by Cibator
Mon 5 Sep, 2011 11:47:10
Forum: To The Devil a Daughter
Topic: TO THE DEVIL-A DAUGHTER
Replies: 19
Views: 60430

Charles: sorry to have confused you (and anyone else). There are in fact two places called Alresford! The larger of them (population about 5,000) is in Hampshire, and this is where Montague Summers lived. The other, little more than half the size of its namesake, is in NE Essex, about half-way betwe...

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