The Devil Rides Out

Black Magic is still practised in all the great cities of the world. This novel tells with macabre detail of a beautiful woman caught in a web of Satanists, of a young man brought to the verge of madness through his dabbling with the powers of evil.

As in Dennis Wheatley's The Forbidden Territory we meet the Duke de Richleau, Simon Aron, the Princess Marie Lou, and other characters. From London to the West Country, from the slums of Paris to a Christian monastery, the action of this powerful occult thriller moves with fantastic, compelling force..

 

Dennis Wheatley

Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) [Born: Dennis Yeats Wheatley] was an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950s and 1960s.

His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published; but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven times in seven weeks.

He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series), Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and espionage (Julian Day).

In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and Herewith The Clues.

In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books per year. A small number of his books were made into films by Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934, film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series, Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.

He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile. During his study of the paranormal, though, he joined the Ghost Club.

From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult", selecting the titles and writing short introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.