Treasure Trove

[Cibator]

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 .....

[Jim]

Wow! Congratulations--what a haul! (You're only missing three of the original set...)

[ericmocata]

I still do not have any of the Heron editions. I have just about any other edition of other books:first editions, Arrow paperbacks, Lymington Editions, Hutchinson Century, etc. I don't think you could find a better deal than what you got on those. I can spend ten bucks on a single paperback edition sometimes.

Though, I have to say that I rather enjoyed The Strange Story of Linda Lee (despite the insanely predictable ending and all) as well as the oft-maligned Star of Ill-Omen (admittedly, not his best work, but I could think of worse things to spend my time reading and it certainly didn't bore me.)

Now, you need a whole stockpile of Hock to drink while reading through that collection....

[Jim]

I just saw a set on eBay--50 of the volumes, and they're asking $239 (U.S.), with an absurd charge to ship them!

Pat yourself on the back...

[Garry Holmes]

I still do not have any of the Heron editions. I have just about any other edition of other books:first editions, Arrow paperbacks, Lymington Editions, Hutchinson Century, etc. I don't think you could find a better deal than what you got on those. I can spend ten bucks on a single paperback edition sometimes.

Though, I have to say that I rather enjoyed The Strange Story of Linda Lee (despite the insanely predictable ending and all) as well as the oft-maligned Star of Ill-Omen (admittedly, not his best work, but I could think of worse things to spend my time reading and it certainly didn't bore me.)

Now, you need a whole stockpile of Hock to drink while reading through that collection....

The situation regarding the Heron editions is that if you're trying to find some on Amazon in the USA then you might have to pay $20 dollars for one book. On the British Amazon site they are available for pennies! A huge number were dumped on the second hand market a few years ago. Don't know where they came from, but they seemed to have knocked down the average price. With the sale of the book rights, I'm still hopeful that brand new P/B editions of DW will someday appear on the shelves of my local bookshop. I already have them in H/B, but it would be nice to see a new generation getting into them.

STAR OF ILL-OMEN can be called many things, but boring is certainly not one of them.

[ericmocata]

I do see numerous Heron editions on ebay all the time, but never have bothered to get them. The one thing I am interested in them for is the fact that, unless I am imagining reading this on the site somewhere, the Heron editions have illustrations. I would like to see some of those. I don't much care for the boring uniform design of the books themselves, though. I'll probably pick up one or two at some point.

As for Star of Ill-Omen (and if you haven't read it, I am going to mention something that may spoil the book for you), I just remember trying to get a mental picture of some of the things Wheatley was writing, namely the giant bees from space. It reminded me of the sometimes kooky descriptions HP Lovecraft came up with. He would describe these unspeakable terrors by comparing them to a sometimes amusing combination of normal things. For instance, the Dunwich Horror has tracks left on the ground that I believe were described as looking like elephant feet with palm fronds attached to them. The image I got from reading that was a bit humorous as well as otherworldly on a certain level. However, I don't say that to bash Lovecraft's writing, because I quite love his work, though his dialogue and characters are usually really poor (except his nearly-omnipresent completely-crazy-yet-entirely-sane characters). It's just an oddball similarity for me. After all, one story has footprints of elephants with palm fronds and that other has giant space bees flying a spaceship. Still, I enjoyed both thoroughly.

I think my least favorite books of Wheatley's are some of the Brook novels (although I have still enjoyed the ones that I have read). I just don't enjoy Roger quite as much as some of the other characters and think some of it is also the fact that Wheatley seemed to stop narrating a story in numerous places with those books and just started writing history lessons. Granted, he did the same basic thing in some of the Sallust novels, but I find those more engaging. Maybe the Nazis and their antics are more interesting than the battles of Napoleon, at least to me.

Besides, I don't think Gregory gets seasick every other book. . . .

[Garry Holmes]

If it's the illustrations that you're interested in, I wouldn't bother, as they come from the school of '70s illustrators who haven't bothered to read the book '. They're not bad as pieces of art, but they add nothing to the experience of the novel. They tend to the abstract, and are at odds with the prose style.

I just find STAR OF ILL-OMEN hilariously funny. The Black Magic books work well because DW's meat and potatoes prose help to ground the fantastic events and make them real. This same approach doesn't seem to work with SOIO. It's still a fun romp, but I do suspect that he probably finished the novel thinking 'never again!' It's not really a genre that he was suited to.

The stuff in the Sallust novels tends to be less annoying than the info dumps in the Brook novels because he probably assumed that that WWII was still recent history, and didn't need the in-depth lectures about every aspect of the Napoleonic war. I also think that the fact that some of the Sallust novels were written at great speed helps them. DW was a born story teller, and when he didn't have the opportunity to go back and re-draft, this story telling skill shines through without having to fight through pages of research.

I do see numerous Heron editions on ebay all the time, but never have bothered to get them. The one thing I am interested in them for is the fact that, unless I am imagining reading this on the site somewhere, the Heron editions have illustrations. I would like to see some of those. I don't much care for the boring uniform design of the books themselves, though. I'll probably pick up one or two at some point.

As for Star of Ill-Omen (and if you haven't read it, I am going to mention something that may spoil the book for you), I just remember trying to get a mental picture of some of the things Wheatley was writing, namely the giant bees from space. It reminded me of the sometimes kooky descriptions HP Lovecraft came up with. He would describe these unspeakable terrors by comparing them to a sometimes amusing combination of normal things. For instance, the Dunwich Horror has tracks left on the ground that I believe were described as looking like elephant feet with palm fronds attached to them. The image I got from reading that was a bit humorous as well as otherworldly on a certain level. However, I don't say that to bash Lovecraft's writing, because I quite love his work, though his dialogue and characters are usually really poor (except his nearly-omnipresent completely-crazy-yet-entirely-sane characters). It's just an oddball similarity for me. After all, one story has footprints of elephants with palm fronds and that other has giant space bees flying a spaceship. Still, I enjoyed both thoroughly.

I think my least favorite books of Wheatley's are some of the Brook novels (although I have still enjoyed the ones that I have read). I just don't enjoy Roger quite as much as some of the other characters and think some of it is also the fact that Wheatley seemed to stop narrating a story in numerous places with those books and just started writing history lessons. Granted, he did the same basic thing in some of the Sallust novels, but I find those more engaging. Maybe the Nazis and their antics are more interesting than the battles of Napoleon, at least to me.

Besides, I don't think Gregory gets seasick every other book. . . .

[ericmocata]

You are absolutely correct about that. I really like the fact that Wheatley himself had no delusions about his writing. He admitted to being a terrible speller and said that his grammar was poor, but he could tell a story. That is exactly why he was a success. That and the fact that he knew how to promote himself.

Thanks for the heads up about the Heron edition artwork. I may still pick up some Heron editions, but only if it is a book of his I don't already have or if I have some insanely good luck like Cibator had.

Another book I dug that some seem to think is not very good is Unholy Crusade. I have to say I enjoyed that one a lot. Some of it is rather over-the-top perhaps, but I found myself engrossed in it. I'll have to re-read it at some point, as opinions can change.