Dennis Wheatley and the Roger Brook stories

[CeeJay]

Some many years ago I was given a battered old book called 'The Launching of Roger Brook'. Quite recently I came across it again gathering dust in my attic, and as I was stuggling to find anything decent to read I thought I would give this book a go. Of course, I had heard of Dennis Wheatley and assumed that his stories were all gouls and witchcraft etc, but this little book really opened my eyes to the delights of Wheatley in a totally different guise.

It starts off in the year 1783 with Roger Brook a young lad at Sherborne School who thereafter embarks on a series of adventures which involves him getting to France and eventually becoming an A.D.C. to Napoleon. The series of books which totals about 11 takes the reader through the history of France and in particular with Napoleon and Josephine in a most readably adventurous way. Wheatley had a fantastic aptitude for the historical correctness, leading the reader through the French Revolution in particular and the campaigns of Napoleon in Spain and Italy together with the Russian debacle and life in the courts of Sweden and England. The gel to all the books is that Roger Brook is the original 'James Bond' whose services were secured by William Pitt 'The Younger' to spy on the Courts of Europe.

As you can probably tell I was smitten after the first book and managed to secure all the books in the series very cheaply at my local second hand book depot in the UK, which unfortunately I cannot divulge for fear of advertising!

[Pads]

That sounds very interesting Ceejay I shall have to look out for that book in my local book shops ( I wonder if you can still buy them new ? must check amazon) Can you give me some of the other titles in the series . I use to read his witch craft books many moons ago, but dont think they would be for me now , but I did like his style of writing .   

[Kitty]

Sherborne being our family school, I looked to see if Dennis Wheatley was an old boy.  It seems not, although John Le Carre was.  Here are some people who did go.

http://www.sherborne.org/sherborne/pdf/alumni.pdf

 

[CeeJay]

Pads;

These books are not in print any longer, the original book, The Launching of Roger Brook, was published in 1947 however the version I have was published in 1959! The second hand book store I mentioned does have an online search facility and will post books, in fact last year I found I was missing one and ordered the book online, cost £1 for the book and £4 for postage to France!! so if you would like more information please PM me. I have an idea there are about 11 books in the series, if you google Denis Wheatley you will find a bibliography of this series.

[petra]

Hello Ceejay! When I first came to France with my then feller, we lived up on a mountain, middle of nowhere. I had no driver's licence then and so stayed home most of the time in that big house in the Jura. It's my husband's parents house and we were looking after it for a while.

So, while he was working all hours, I was there BORED out of my mind! Then I checked the book shelves and saw this old row of battered Wheatley books.

"Hmm? Wheatley? Never heard of him! Seems Phil's dad has, he's got them all!" Loads of them he had. So, I started reading the Roger Brook ones first and that was it!

Ceejay, it was heaven sent. I was about to up and leave, go back to Blighty, start again with my sister, even though I didn't really want to, but anything was better than the tedium of a no-life!

Those swash-buckling adventures got me through a mind-numbing phase of my life I can tell you! I couldn't put the books down, much to Phil's chagrin after a week of this! LOL Well, after I finished the first one, he started on them. Cheers for the reminder!

Petra