Some Christmas cards sent to Dennis Wheatley
Remarkably, a handful of Dennis Wheatley’s Christmas cards have survived in various private collections.
The pencil annotations are in general DW’s own.
Here they are to add enjoyment to your Christmas
An anonymous card from DW’s time as a Lieutenant at Ipswich in 1915
J D Moore
Undated card
DW’s fellow subaltern in World War One
Felix Doubleday
undated card
Publisher
Norman Collins
Card from 1935
Chairman of publishers Victor Gollancz
W.R. Calvert
Card from 1935
Journalist and Author
William Younger
Card from 1936
William was DW’s stepson, a poet, an MI5 operative, and a successful novelist under the pseudonym of William Mole.
Maxwell Knight
Card from 1936
Spymaster (one of the two inspirations for Ian Fleming's “M”), Broadcaster & Naturalist
Tom Driberg
Card from 1936
Journalist, gourmet, sometime Chairman of the Labour Party, and the man who introduced DW to Aleister Crowley, Montague Summers and Rollo Ahmed
Francis Powys
Card from 1936
? The author T.F. (Theodore Francis) Powys
Bernard Falk (?)
Card from 1936
? Research editor at the Sunday Dispatch
Howard Spring
Card from 1937
Author and critic
Joan Grant (1907-1989)
Card from 1938
Joan Grant is famous for her book ‘Winged Pharaoh’ in which she apparently remembered her former life as a Queen in First Dynasty Egypt.
DW helped publicise the book and her experiences affirmed his belief in re-incarnation.
Richard Wainwright
Card from 1938
Producer of the black & white films of Forbidden Territory (1934) & Secret of Stamboul
(1936)
The Earl & Countess Temple
Undated card
Major the Earl Temple of Stowe (also known as Chandos Temple) was the No. 2 on Strangeway’s Deception Planning team in North Africa
George H Hill
Card from 1952
Dedicatee of The Eunuch of Stamboul (1935), George (‘Peter’) Hill was amongst other things a secret agent in Bolshevik Russia, a soldier and a successful businessman. DW described him in ‘Drink & Ink’ as one of the most interesting men he had ever met.
Lord and Lady Derwent
Undated card
Lord and Lady Derwent
Card from 1952
Lord and Lady Derwent
Card from 1976
Lord and Lady Derwent (Patrick Vanden- Bempde-Johnstone, 4th Baron Derwent and his wife Marise)
Lord Derwent was a Conservative Minister and Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords
Lord Clanmorris
John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris
British diplomat (Ambassador to India in 1959), novelist, MI5 operative and alleged inspiration for Le Carre’s George Smiley
Lord Clanmorris
Card from 1974
John Bingham, 7th Baron Clanmorris. Novelist and alleged inspiration for Le Carre’s George Smiley
General Sir Richard Gale GCB, KBE, DSO
Card from 1971
General Sir Richard Gale led the British Paratroop Assault on Normandy and he was the first British general to land on French soil on D-Day at 3.30 a.m.
Brigadier Dudley Clarke CB, CBE
Card from 1971
Dudley Clarke – wartime deception planner extraordinaire.
He is described by Thaddeus Holt in his book ‘The Deceivers’ as quite simply
‘The Master of the Game’.
Among his other achievements he was responsible for the naming of and early organisation of the Commandos.
Colonel J.H. Bevan, MC
Card from 1971
DW’s Commanding Officer for much of World War II
Bevan was the head of the London Controlling Section, or deception planning specialists, in World War II.
Sir John Peck
Card from 1972
Churchill’s Private Secretary in World War II
Hammond Innes
Card from 1972
Novelist
Hammond Innes
Card from 1974
Novelist
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir William F Dickson
Card from 1974
Chief of the Defence Staff (and thus the professional head of the British Armed Forces) in the 1950s and one of DW’s earliest wartime mentors.
Sir Ronald Wingate
Card from 1974
One of DW’s colleagues on The London Controlling Section in World War II
Cousin of Lawrence of Arabia and Orde Wingate
George Sutcliffe
Bookmark
Sutcliffe was one of the principals of famed bookbinders Sangorski & Sutcliffe, who bound DW’s copies of his own works.