Intelligence and Information in the Espionage Fiction of Dennis Wheatley



Rebecah Pulsifer

Slaney Chadwick Ross

This article examines the spy novels of Dennis Wheatley as exemplars of the desire of espionage fiction to grapple with changing understandings of the role of the individual in the field of intelligence services. Wheatley's crackerjack spy, Gregory Sallust, is adept at both mastering and synthesizing information, and this skill set puts him at odds with prevailing mid-century trends in information theory, which tended to view human intelligence as incapable of effectively analyzing the large amounts of data that technological advances made available for the first time. Wheatley's Sallust, a prototype of James Bond who blends analytical brilliance with intense personality, is a striking example of the ways in which espionage fiction between the wars negotiated a desire to privilege human experience against new understandings of both human intelligence and intelligence gathering.