Dennis Wheatley,Edgar Rice Burroughs And The Pulp Masters.

Way back in the 1960s one of my favourite authors was the paperback thriller writer Dennis Wheatley. I must have devoured most of his oeuvre during those years .His output was prodigious and contrary to received wisdom  only a small number were concerned with the black magic and occult themes for which he is now remembered that is when he is remembered at all.Much of his work consisted of thrillers set before and during the Second World War in which he served as an adviser to Churchill's War Cabinet.He also wrote historical novels set during the French revolution and Napoleonic Wars and the late 19th and early 20th centuries.As well as the Black Magic novels he also wrote novels of the lost world variety which date back to Edgar Rice Burroughs ,Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle.I believe on modern creative writing courses the students are advised to write about what you know.In Wheatleys case this involved a year in the Kaisers Germany studying the wine trade prior to the Great War,four years in the trenches, a partnership with a Raffles style gentleman crook Eric Toombes,the Roaring Twenties as experienced by someone in the wine trade invited to all the wild parties,meetings with the worlds leading Occultist Aleister Crowley,marriage to a wife who subsequently worked for MI5 and a place in the planning department of Churchill's War Cabinet.He was also King George the Sixths favourite novelist.