Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was a British writer whose prolific output of thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors from the 1930s through to the 1960s.

Dennis admitted to having little aptitude for schooling and was later expelled after a few "unhappy years" studying at Dulwich College for allegedly forming a "secret society", as he mentions in his introduction to The Devil Rides Out.

[2][3][4] Wheatley was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant into the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War, receiving his basic training at Biscot Camp[5] in Luton.

[7] During the Second World War Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans.

He wrote numerous papers for them, including suggestions for dealing with a possible Nazi invasion of Britain (recounted in his works Stranger than Fiction and The Deception Planners).

He wrote: "The fact that I had read extensively about ancient religions gave me some useful background, but I required up-to-date information about occult circles in this country.

"[8] The release the next year of his occult story, The Devil Rides Out—hailed by James Hilton as "the best thing of its kind since Dracula"—cemented his reputation as "The Prince of Thriller Writers."

For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character involves himself with Napoleon and Joséphine whilst spying for Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger.

In They Used Dark Forces, the last book of the Sallust war-time sequence, Göring gets a surprisingly positive depiction as an honourable man who disliked the systematic killing of the Jews (though not actually doing anything to stop it) and who wanted to end the war when realizing that Germany was doomed to lose it; Göring is contrasted with Goebbels, who according to Wheatley "was on the extreme left" and "took seriously the Socialist part of National Socialism".

During the 1930s, Wheatley conceived a series of mysteries, presented as case files, including testimonies, letters, and pieces of evidence such as hairs or pills.

Wheatley also wrote non-fiction works, including an account of the Russian Revolution, a life of King Charles II of England, and several autobiographical volumes.

These included both occult-themed novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley (with whom he once shared a lunch) and non-fiction works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.

He predicted in it that the socialist reforms, which were introduced by the post-war government, would result inevitably in the abolition of the monarchy, the "pampering" of a "lazy" working class and a national bankruptcy.

The doctrine of ensuring every child a good start in life and equal opportunities is fair and right, but the intelligent and the hardworking will always rise above the rest, and it is not a practical proposition that the few should be expected to devote their lives exclusively to making things easy for the majority.

Wheatley's literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion in April 2008, and several titles were reissued in Wordsworth paperback editions.