Richard C McNeff

Welcome

Richard C McNeff was born on Hampstead Heath. He is the author of Aleister Crowley MI5 (first published as Sybarite among the Shadows) and Aleister Crowley MI6: The Hess Solution, a sequel. With Barry Flanagan: Travels through Time and Spain is a memoir of acting as “spontaneous fixer” for the sculptor on Ibiza. Richard’s work has been published in Britain, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Holland. He has contributed to The Guardian, Wormwood and Boulevard Magenta.

New Release 26 August

While We Yet Live – A timeslip narrative that spans Nero’s Rome and contemporary Ibiza.

Substack/blog posts

The Names of the Hare: A portrait of Barry Flanagan, sculptor. Here

What Rough Beast: Aleister Crowley remembers W.B. Yeats. Here

Three Mystery Crashes: Was Hess’s 1941 crash linked to the 1942 Duke of Kent crash and the 1943 Sikorski disaster? Here

Pataphysical Introduction: Meet Alfred Jarry, time traveller. Here

Harry in Wonderland: Prince Harry escapes to the South Pacific for some much-needed me time. But the best laid plans…Click here to sample The Dream of Boris

The Sound of 65: The Graham Bond’s ORGANisation’s fractious gig at Klooks Kleek and a subsequent encounter with two acid-spiked Beatles in Soho. Click Here to sample Aleister Crowley MI6

McNeff’s novel is so different from anything you’d normally find on a bookshelf that it should perhaps be a compulsory purchase. –

The Independent on Sunday

Brilliantly researched, this is an astonishing read, a 24-hour snapshot of the seedy underground life of artists, poets, prostitutes, spies, and royalty of mid-Thirties London, all revolving around the fading powerhouse that was the Great Beast. – Fortean Times

A swaggering romp of a novel. Plot by Buchan; characters by Beardsley; setting Art Deco – difficult to better that. – Wormwood

Italian edition

An irresistible intrigue – Vanity Fair

We are in the presence of a novel of great fascination – Il Manifesto

…a daring odyssey of pubs, prostitutes and occult sciences, a poetic Art Deco thriller, seen through the bluish haze of cigarettes and opium, in a nightclub that remained open until dawn – La Repubblica

Last Testament of the Autocrat: Has he destroyed the world? Here

In The Swim: Dylan Thomas visits Victor Neuburg on June 11 1936. Click Here to sample Aleister Crowley MI5

Pioneers: meet Jack Parsons – rocket scientist, dope fiend, magus. Click Here to sample Aleister Crowley MI6

Did Aleister Crowley interrogate Rudolf Hess?

Aleister Crowley as himself in all his occult and charismatic glory – a manipulative, overbearing, bizarre yet compelling character. Fiction could hardly have invented him: he is a gift of a character to any novelist & Richard C McNeff has accepted him, unwrapped the parcel and given him his head. —Martin Booth (author of A Magick Life)

It is a very personal and often hilarious recollection of McNeff’s support of Flanagan … a compelling portrait of this great artist.
Barbara Dawson: Irish Arts Review

A book so rich in Barry-lore and response to his work that it more or less makes other biographies unnecessary.
Catherine Lampert (former director of the Whitechapel Gallery)

A cracking memoir – funny, informative, elegiac and thought-provoking.
Martin Davies (Barbary Press)

The Beast Goes on: Aleister Crowley’s influence on music. Here

Mighty Blighty: an excerpt from The Dream of Boris for Count Binface. Here

Kings of Oblivion: a cautionary tale of the Lightning Raiders’ 1978 gig at the Moonlight Club, West Hampstead and partying with Lemmy, Mick Farren, the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind. Here