John Webster

David Gunby

Second volume of plays in this edition of the works of John Webster.

The Works of John Webster

John Oliver (Jo) Lancaster DFC had a remarkable career in aviation spanning half a century. Starting out in 1935 as an engineering apprentice with Armstrong Whitworth Jo went on to fly an extraordinary 54 operations against the enemy during the Second World War, piloting Vickers Wellingtons and Avro Lancasters with RAF Bomber Command s 40 and 12 Squadrons. Jo also took part in the Thousand Bomber Raids in 1942 while an instructor at an operational training unit. Subsequently Jo was posted to the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down, during which he flew a wide range of types, including captured German aircraft, and this was followed by training at the Empire Test Pilots School. Post-war Jo took up numerous appointments as a test pilot including duties with Boulton Paul and Saunders-Roe, where he test flew the revolutionary Saro S.R. A/1 single-seat jet flying boat fighter. On 30 May 1949, while carrying out test pilot duties with Armstrong Whitworth, Jo was flying the A.W. 52 Flying Wing and became the first pilot to use a Martin-Baker ejection seat in an emergency. Retiring as a test pilot in 1962, Jo was later involved in aerial crop spraying in the Middle East before becoming Aviation Manager for Meridian Air Maps, carrying out aerial survey work from the West Indies to Central Africa and Portugal to Cyprus. By retirement in 1984 Jo had accumulated 11,000 flying hours on some 150 different aircraft types. Author David Gunby, through extensive interviews and correspondence with Jo, and complimented with diligent archive research, has written a highly detailed account of this outstanding aviator. First Out In Earnest, featuring numerous previously unpublished photographs, is the remarkable account of a life dedicated to flying by one of the rapidly diminishing number of survivors from the golden age in British aviation."

The Remarkable Life of Jo Lancaster Dfc from Bomber Command Pilot to Test Pilot and the Martin Baker Ejection Seat

First Out in Earnest

David Carnegie

MacDonald P. Jackson

This is the fourth and final volume of the Cambridge edition of the works of John Webster. It contains four plays Webster wrote in collaboration, one - Sir Thomas Wyatt, a historical tragedy based around Lady Jane Grey - as part of a team of five led by Thomas Dekker, two - Westward Ho and Northward Ho, city comedies that prompted Chapman, Jonson, and Marston's Eastward Ho - with Thomas Dekker alone, and one - The Fair Maid of the Inn, an Italianate tragicomedy of which Webster wrote the largest share - with John Fletcher, Philip Massinger and John Ford. With the inclusion of these four plays, this Cambridge edition becomes the first complete works of John Webster. The edition preserves the original spelling of the plays, poetry, and prose, and incorporates the most recent editorial scholarship, including information on Webster's share in the collaborative plays, and new critical methods, textual theory, and theatrical analysis.

Sir Thomas Wyatt, Westward Ho, Northward Ho, The Fair Maid of the Inn

The Works of John Webster: Volume 4

Peter Kaák

205 Group RAF mining operations over the River Danube in 1944. The product of research in British, Australian, South African, German, Hungarian and Slovak archives, 'Gardening by Moonlight' is about one of the least known and most effective of the Royal Air Force's bombing campaigns of the Second World War. Operating from a group of bases around Foggia, in Central Italy, the RAF's 205 Group mined the River Danube intensively between April and October 1944, radically curtailing the movement of Axis river shipping and at times halting it altogether. The Wellington and Liberator crews had to sow their mines (hence the slang term 'gardening') at low level on moonlit nights, running the gauntlet of night fighters, flak and balloon barrages. Their courage, skill and sacrifice are celebrated in what is an important account of a virtually unknown aspect of the war in the air.

David Gunby

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