There was a time when Dennis Wheatley's first editions were very sought after or, in a phrase I hate with a passion, "highly collectible". Most of his books have never been very expensive, although my 2010 copy of R. B. Russell's Guide to First Edition Prices suggests that his 1930s titles might be worth a few hundred pounds, but for years, those reasonably inexpensive firsts were the staple diet of a provincial bookshop. Not any more. He's dead in the water. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're bad books, I have very fond memories of a long summer as a teenager in which I hoovered up the whole of the Gregory Sallust series and all the black magic books. I suggested on Twitter the other day that finding a pile of Dennis Wheatley books in the middle of an otherwise decent lot of books is the bookseller's equivalent of a gardener finding Japanese Knotweed growing under your shrubbery! And it happened to me. A lot of books I bought for other things happened to include a big load of Wheatley, not many are first editions, some have great covers, some are ex-library but not all, the condition is mixed. So, let's see if it really is true that you can't give this stuff away...
On Tuesday next week I am donating these to a charity shop near here. If you would like any one or more of them before then, drop me an email. I ask only that you pay the cost of shipping to wherever you are in the world. In the unlikely event that more than two people want the same book I shall doll them out in the order the requests appear in my inbox. Go Wheatley....!
