''The Satanist'' is a black magic/horror novel by

Dennis Wheatley Dennis Yeats 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 the 1960s. His Gregory Sallust series ...

. Published in 1960, it is characterized by an anti-communist spy theme. The novel was one of the popular novels of the 1960s popularizing the tabloid notion of a black mass. The novel follows on from '' To the Devil – a Daughter'', a successful occult novel from January 1953, later filmed in 1976 and features from the earlier novel Colonel Verney, an anti-Soviet anti-black magic British spymaster. The plot concerns Mary Morden, a young widow, and Verney's special agent Barney Sullivan who infiltrate a satanic cult. In doing so they foil a communist plot to conquer the world. The novel presents conservative political and social views, and a conservative picture of the hero's masculinity. The novel was published by Hutchinson & Co. who coincidentally had published the

gothic novel Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

of the same name by Mrs Hugh Fraser in 1912.Peter Haining ''A circle of witches: an anthology of Victorian witchcraft'' 1971 p220 "THE SATANIST Mrs Hugh Fraser Mrs Hugh Fraser (1864-1925). ... along with several other stories of the same period set the standards for today's occult fiction and can be seen mirrored in the tales of August Derleth, Dennis Wheatley and, ..."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Satanist, The 1960 British novels British horror novels Novels by Dennis Wheatley