[Dennis Wheatley, immensely popular writer of thrillers and occult novels.] Copy of his bookplate by Frank C. Papé, accompanied by Autograph Note Signed by Wheatley.

See Wheatley's entry in the Oxford DNB. In good condition, lightly aged. The aquatint bookplate, in black and white, is 10.5 x 14.5 cm (plate dimensions 9 x 12.5 cm). It was designed by Wheatley himself, and is everything you would hope from a writer in his field. A naked Wheatley, with slicked-back 1920s hairstyle, sits at the feet of a cloven-footed devil (Wheatley’s mentor G. Eric Gordon-Tombe, and the man he is alleged to have murdered) under the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. There is an open book in the branches of the tree, and in the background a man is being crucified beneath a vision of a goddess. At bottom left is a champagne bottle in a cooler, beside a saxophone. At bottom right: ‘Frank C. Papé 28’. At head: ‘EX LIBRIS DENNIS WHEATLEY’, and beneath the illustration is what purports to be a quotation from ‘Gordon Eric Gordon-Tombe’.The bookplate is laid down on the card cover of ‘History of Ceylon for Schools / II / The British Period & After / 1796-1956’. On the reverse of the cover, beneath the bookplate, Wheatley has written in ink, in a firm hand: ‘Used by me while writing my book / “Dangerous Inheritance” / Dennis Wheatley’.