Dennis Wheatley books for sale at Quinto

[bradstevens]

Anyone looking for Dennis Wheatley books may like to know that Quinto in Charing Cross Road (http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1277/3333.php) has what seems to be a virtually complete set of Wheatley hardbacks for sale at around 3.50 each. Many of these would seem to be first editions, though a large number of them are uniform hardback editions from the 70s.

[dem bones]

£3.50 is incredibly reasonable by Charing Cross Road prices, Are they having some kind of Wheatley celebration, Brad, or is it just a case of Quinto's buying them as a job lot and going for a quick turnover?

[bradstevens]

I'm assuming that they purchased these books as a job lot. By the way, just to clarify, the Wheatley books are in the basement section.

I picked up a copy of MEDITERRANEAN NIGHTS, one of the few Wheatley titles I didn't already have. This is a hardback edition from the 70s (published by Edito-Service), and seems to contain all the stories from the previous variant hardback and paperback editions.

You can find information about the Edito-Service editions here:

www.denniswheatley.info/heron.htm

Qunito's had 30 or 40 of these.

[dem bones]

Oh yeah, I know the ones you mean now. I remember being haunted by the "A solemn warning by Dennis Wheatley" advert for years until Bob Rothwell put us onto his scan.

Naked Blond

I'd appreciate us if you let us know how you get on with Med. Nights. I've passed on a paperback edition as it didn't seem to have much horror content, but i'd love to be proved wrong.

[bradstevens]

The biggest eye-opener so far is in Wheatley's introduction to the story DEATH AT THREE-THIRTY:

"I wrote the story when I was on holiday in Rome in 1938 and it was only the unusualness of the request from the Editor of the DAILY SKETCH which intrigued me into sitting down to work... He wrote to me that he was planning a series of six stories each by a different author but all having in common the same situation for their opening.

A pretty girl comes out of an hotel and gets into her waiting car. As she is about to drive off the hotel porter comes running after her with a small parcel in his hand exclaiming 'Hi! Miss, you've forgotten this!' Instead of taking theparcel the girl gives him a startled glance and, jamming her foot down on the accelerator, dashes off down the street leaving the astonished porter still clutching the parcel in his hand.

What story-teller worthy of his salt could possibly have resisted such an invitation? I was not in the least surprised to learn that several of my most distinguished contemporaries in other fields of fiction had already accepted it... Among the other participants in this delightful game were Ethel Mannin, P. G. Wodehouse and, I think, Agatha Christie - I forget the other two."

I'm a P. G. Wodehouse fanatic, but I can find no record of a Wodehouse story having appeared in the DAILY SKETCH. I've posted this information to a Wodehouse group, and e-mailed it to a Wodehouse specialist, so I'm hoping somebody will know something about it.

[dem bones]

Would your Wodehouse expert live in Plaistow, E13 by any chance, Brad?

Something i like best about Wheatley's Gunmen, Gallants & Ghosts collection are those long-winded, anecdotal intro's. At one point (after yet another page of shameless name-dropping) he warns his male readers to give Love Trap a miss as it was written for Woman's Own and a chap really can't be doing with that.