Hugh Callingham Wheeler was born on March 19, 1912, in London, England to Harold and Florence (Scammell) Wheeler. He received a bachelor's degree in English from the University of London in 1932. Ten years later, in 1942, he became a naturalized American citizen. Wheeler's writing career began with detective novels published under three different pseudonyms: Patrick Quentin, Q. Patrick, and Jonathan Stagge. Wheeler collaborated on several of these novels with Richard Wilson Webb until 1952. A Puzzle for Fools (1936), written under the pen name Patrick Quentin, became the first volume in Simon and Schuster's "Inner Sanctum" mystery series and was well received.

In 1961, Wheeler found success in the theater with productions of two of his plays. Big Fish, Little Fish, Wheeler's first play, was produced by Sir John Gielgud and starred Jason Robards Jr. Howard Taubman, who reviewed the play for the New York Times, praised its "current of honest feeling...