Beau Geste by P C Wren

Beau Geste by P C Wren

The first volume of a four-volume set of collected Gestes

There are some works of fiction and their characters that are well-known to almost everyone, whether or not they have read the books: King Solomon's Mines and Alan Quatermain, The Prisoner of Zenda and Rudolf Rassendyll, Sherlock Holmes and his faithful Doctor John Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Thirty Nine Steps and Richard Hannay, to mention a few.

Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was an English adventure novelist who wrote thirty-three novels and short stories about colonial soldiers in Africa. His most famous work is Beau Geste, a novel about the French Foreign Legion published in 1924 that has been adapted for the film multiple times. He was born in the English town of Deptford. He roamed the world for five years after receiving an MA from Oxford before joining the British Cavalry. He is thought to have joined the French Foreign Legion from there, though he kept his participation a secret.

He worked for the Bombay government for eleven years before returning to London to pursue his literary career. Beau Geste's popularity prompted him to write a series of Foreign Legion books.