DENNIS WHEATLEY was born in London in 1897, the son and grandson of Mayfair wine merchants. From 1908 to 1912 he was a cadet in HMS Worcester, then spent a year in Germany, learning about wine-making. In September 1914 (aged 17) he received his first commission (2nd/1st City of London R.F.A. (T) and later fought at Passchendaele, Cambrai and St Quentin.
Gassed on the French front and consequently invalided from the Army, he entered the family wine business in 1919, becoming the sole owner in 1926, on the death of his father. Among his customers he numbered three Kings, twenty-one Princes (including H.M. King George VI, then Duke of York), and many millionaires. During this period he tried his hand at writing short stories, many of which were later published or expanded into novels. He became a Liveryman of the Vintners and Distillers Companies, and in 1931, married Joan, the younger daughter of the late Hon. Louis Johnstone.
In 1932 he sold his business to take up writing as a profession. His first short story was published in January 1933 in Nash’s and The Cosmopolitan (USA), and his first novel, The Forbidden Territory, in the same month. It was reprinted seven times in seven weeks, and Alfred Hitchcock bought the film rights. His next book, Such Power is Dangerous, was also a bestseller and the books that followed earned him world wide praise from the leading critics; there can be few other authors with such an unbroken record of successes that every one of his novels is still kept in print and selling in tens of thousands. Due to this success Dennis Wheatley was one of the first authors to form himself into a limited company.
In 1939 he became editor of the “Personality Pages” of the Sunday Graphic and also joined a panel of voluntary speakers to secure volunteers for the Services, V.A D.‘s, etc. In 1941 he was re-commissioned in the R.A.F.V.R., to fill a specially created post on the Joint Planning Staff of the War Cabinet — the only civilian ever to receive such a distinction. Until December 1944 he worked as a Wing Commander in the famous fortress basement which was Sir Winston Churchill’s war-time headquarters, writing papers on the high direction of the war for submission to the Chiefs-of-Staff.
He has traveled in most European countries, North, Central and South America, Africa, the Far East, and the South Seas. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and of the Royal Society of Arts, and was President of the New Forest Agricultural Show in 1968. His work has been published in twenty-six languages and over thirty million copies of his books have been sold.