The Hellfire Club The Rise and Fall of a Shocking Secret Society

The author of The Way of the Gladiator turns from the arenas of ancient Rome to the center of debauchery and impiety in eighteenth-century England.

“Stranger, refuse, if you can, what we have to offer.” These words, engraved in Latin, welcomed visitors to a rebuilt medieval abbey on the banks of the Thames. Adorned with stained-glass windows featuring the twelve apostles in indecent poses and a pornographic fresco on the ceiling, the abbey was the brainchild of Sir Francis Dashwood, a baronet and heir to a great fortune.

There, Dashwood’s Hellfire Club was born, including among its members some of the most influential figures of the time, including the prime minister of England, the mayor of London, several of England’s greatest artists and poets, the Prince of Wales, and even Benjamin Franklin. And it was dedicated to the practice of black magic, sexual orgies, and political conspiracies.

Placing the Hellfire Club in the context of the turbulent era that spawned it, Daniel P. Mannix chronicles the club’s heady glory days to its ultimate demise. Placed far above the law, the society’s wealthy, noble rakes and rogues surrendered to their basest urges and set out to ridicule and destroy moral conventions—respect for the monarchy, religion, and decency—and to a large extent, they succeeded, and even changed the course of history . . .

Daniel P. Mannix was an award-winning American author and journalist, as well as a magician and filmmaker. Mannix’s magazine articles about his experiences in the carnival, where he performed under the stage name “The Great Zadma,” became popular in the mid-1940s and were compiled with the assistance of his wife in the book Step Right Up! His dozens of books and extensive essays range in subject from children’s animal stories, environmental issues, and hunting accounts to historical examinations of the Hellfire Club, the Atlantic slave trade, and the Roman gladiatorial games. Mannix was particularly interested in the Wizard of Oz canon and composed a biography of L. Frank Baum for American Heritage magazine in the 1960s.