"The best of Dennis Wheatley"

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Charles
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"The best of Dennis Wheatley"

Post by Charles »

Dear All,

My thanks to Steve Whatley and Duncan West, who both alerted me to the fact that a new reprint of DW is apparently coming out.

See :-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Dennis-Whe ... =8-1-spell

"The Best Of Dennis Wheatley" will be published by Prion Books Ltd and is due out on 12th May. According to the blurb it contains 'The Devil Rides Out', 'To The Devil A Daughter' and 'Gateway to Hell'.

I've emailed Chorion to ask about it but my usual contact is away.

The 'Product Description' for 'To The Devil A Daughter' reads as follows :-

"To the Devil a Daughter" tells the story of a group of practising Satanists who disguise themselves as 'The Children of the Lord'. Catherine - a nun - is one of this group. She is allowed to come home once a year on her birthday. On one of these trips home, an occult writer named John Verney realizes that the group are Satanists and are preparing Catherine to become an avatar of Astaroth on her eighteenth birthday.

Clearly they haven't read the book :roll: !

Best as always - and thanks Steve and Duncan - much appreciated !
Charles
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caroline$-0
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Post by caroline$-0 »

thank you
Cibator
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Post by Cibator »

I thought as much ..... I've just done some checking, and found that that absurd synopsis given by Amazon is the one for the 1976 film which happens to share its title with DW's book. (It would be overstating matters to say that it's based, even loosely, on the novel, even though Imdb credits DW among the movie's writers.)
Fas est et ab hoste doceri
Jim
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Re: "The best of Dennis Wheatley"

Post by Jim »

Charles wrote: My thanks to Steve Whatley and Duncan West, who both alerted me to the fact that a new reprint of DW is apparently coming out.

"The Best Of Dennis Wheatley" will be published by Prion Books Ltd and is due out on 12th May. According to the blurb it contains 'The Devil Rides Out', 'To The Devil A Daughter' and 'Gateway to Hell'.
Wow--time for a Book Depository pre-order!!!
ken68
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Post by ken68 »

well bit of a strange choice as a "best of". gateway to hell? not one of DWS best and as i remember it very un-PC!
why do they always pick the black magic stories that riles me. whats wrong with with any of the modern musketeers or the gregory sallust stories?

well at least its a chance to bring the great man back to the public.

my copy is ordered.

ken
Jim
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Post by Jim »

ken68 wrote: why do they always pick the black magic stories - that riles me. what's wrong with with any of the modern musketeers or the gregory sallust stories?
There's a John Creasey collection called Four of the Best, which was assembled by the author himself. They're all series novels, but each is from a different series, to show the various styles in which he worked.

Two of these DW stories have fairly recently been paperbacked by Wordsworth, and must have sold pretty well to justify their appearance here as well. Still, it would have been nice to have something else...
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Post by duncanpaul17 »

Ken has made a good point. All of the recent Dennis Wheatley releases have featured his 'Black Magic ' stories.

The three books in the Best of Dennis Wheatley were, with addition of The Satanist, the stories released by BCA in 2 books in 2005.

I think this goes to show that although he only wrote 11 books with a black magic theme, if you include 'The White Witch of the South seas' and 'The Island Where Time Stands Still' this appears to be the genre with which he is most associated and remembered for.

This is the genre that introduced me to his work. I did not get into the Roger Brooke stories until I had read ''The Irish Witch' and the first time I encountered Gregory was in 'They used Dark Forces'. Clever marketing by Dennis to introduce readers to these characters?

The 'Library of the Occult' series possibly also makes the majority of people associate him with this field only.

Duncan.
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Post by Alan »

ken68 wrote:well bit of a strange choice as a "best of". gateway to hell? not one of DWS best and as i remember it very un-PC!
why do they always pick the black magic stories that riles me. whats wrong with with any of the modern musketeers or the gregory sallust stories?

well at least its a chance to bring the great man back to the public.

my copy is ordered.

ken
"The Devil Rides Out" and "Gateway to Hell" ARE modern musketeer stories!

Re the selection, my guess is that it represents not the BEST of DW so much as the MOST ACCESSIBLE... for example, most of the Roger Brook or Gregory Sallust stories really need to be read in context of the series, or you will have no idea who Georgina or Grauber are. The black magic stories - whether featuring the Duc or not - work better as stand alone stories for new readers.

Personally, I'd love to see them reissue the whole Sallust, Musketeers and Roger Brook series, even if the non=series books were ignored. Maybe this will happen now there are signs of a DW revival!
ken68
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Post by ken68 »

Point taken Alan . Maybe I should have put "other" or non black magic modern musketeers books. I just think that it stereotypes DW and his books. DW being stereotyped, oh the irony!
Also as the time between DRO and and gateway to hell must be at least 20 years I would hope it may encourage readers to seek out some others from the series to fill in the gaps. Just not sure that gateway would do that. Surely black august, golden spaniard, forbidden territory or if a black magic sorry was really essential strange conflict, or even better and cash in on the publicity of Toby jugg would all have been fine as stand alone books.

Ken
Jim
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Post by Jim »

Fifty-four days to go! Though I own all three of the novels in this collection, I ordered it from the Book Depository, as much for the deliciously garish cover as anything else. (While I was there, I posted my negative review of the travesty Unnatural Selection.) Not only was there a 25% pre-order discount, but I'd gotten an e-mail advertising an additional 10% off one purchase only, so I also ordered the upcoming British Library reprint of the Mervyn Peake collection, Peake's Progress. The new Sexton Blake collection--due last October--still hasn't come out, or I'd have ordered that, too!
Alan
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Post by Alan »

We have a Mervyn Peake fan here!!!!!!!!! Fantastic!!! (dances, joints clicking in best Mr Flay manner)
Jim
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Post by Jim »

I have a few of his books, but I'm really only familiar with the Gormenghast sequence, which is to be "completed" this year with his widow's rendition of what would have been the fourth volume.
Last edited by Jim on Wed 11 May, 2011 23:00:13, edited 2 times in total.
Alan
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Post by Alan »

Yeah and I wished Maeve had left it alone - really only the first two books are any good, the third was written when poor Mervyn was cracking up and really only makes limited sense - not to mention it is totally different in feel to the stories that actually take place in the castle.
Jim
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Post by Jim »

I gather that Titus Alone suffered very badly at the hands of its first editors, though I agree it's not as interesting as the first two books. (The BBC, making the television version, obviously also agreed with you!) It wasn't until 1970 that a version was issued that was close to what the author set down--we cannot know how he would have altered it for final publication, had he been able. That he did not mean the Titus stories to be only a trilogy is also made clear by his decision to revise the novella "Boy in Darkness" as part of the sequence: the boy is un-named in the original manuscript, but later is called Titus.

[Someone who has a copy of Sometime, Never will have to check that--I only have the story in The Inner Landscape, which is the so-called "corrupt" version.]
ken68
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Post by ken68 »

Oh just got my copy. Very nice. Impressed. Have read the foreword by DWs grandson and i found it quite touching. Had started reading the intro but but am covered in choc and don't won't to spoil the book.who wrote the intro anyone know?
Interesting quote on back dust jacket. Michael Gove! Education secretary. Who says Tories are all bad!!!!!

Ken
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