The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - DW's Library

Dennis Wheatley's Library - modern first editions
Peter Cheyney

DW’s copy of ‘No Ordinary Cheyney’

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Among others who gave DW inscribed copies of their books was thriller writer Peter Cheyney, from whom DW received almost thirty signed books.

DW’s friendship with Cheyney did not meet with universal approval. While Rupert Croft-Cooke described DW as ‘a man of breeding and principle’, he described Cheyney as ‘this overbearing cheapjack of literature’, and added that when DW introduced him to Cheyney ‘I was not very shrewd or wordly in the matter of character. I trusted far less than today in my own reading of physiognomy. But every instinct I had told me that the man who entered the room was a cad and a potential con man.’

References : Officer & Temporary Gentleman page 149
Rupert Croft-Cooke ‘The Sound of Revelry’ (1969) pp 135-137
Phil Baker pp 344,345,358,359,372,377,511

Provenance : With many thanks to Steve Whatley