The Satanist
Dennis Wheatley

(version 1.1)

To the memory of
that most illustrious story-teller,

ALEXANDRE DUMAS PÉRE

Whose books gave me enormous pleasure when I was a boy.

Whose heroes, while subject to normal human frailties, set a splendid example to the young of courage, loyalty and endurance - for which reason I have modelled the heroes of my own books on them.

And whose very slender short story, 'The Corsican Brothers', while having no resemblance whatever in period, subject, background or plot to The Satanist, gave me the idea of using identical twins as two of my principal characters in it.

Foreword

Dennis Wheatley discovered he was a story-teller at school - he told me of the joy of realising that he could capture and hold the attention of the others in his dormitory, and I can well understand it. He later became, briefly, a naval cadet; for some four years a soldier in the 1914-18 War, and then a wine merchant. This he might well have remained for the rest of his life since, after a few years, his father died and he inherited a modestly successful West-End shop which dealt in his favourite commodity and left him with sufficient leisure to enjoy his favourite occupation, which was reading. However, when approaching middle age he returned to story-telling and continued telling stories until his death more than forty years later. I would like some of the millions who delighted from his change of course to know something of how it came about and of their debt to me for the part I played, discreditable though I fear it was.

The truth, I suppose, is that nothing would really have prevented Wheatley from exercising his immense talent for story-telling, even if the business he inherited had been the kind where the aristocracy of Mayfair would look in for a glass of wine and advice on the current vintages from the Managing Director. Unfortunately, though, No. 26 South Audley Street was more a beer and mineral water shop which stocked a little mediocre wine and depended for its trade on currying the favour of seedy butlers and housekeepers, who were more concerned with the commission they received than the quality of the wine.