Percival Christopher Wren

When a precious gem disappears and suspicion falls upon the Geste brothers, the three young men join the French Foreign Legion in this ever-popular tale of adventure, courage, and suspense.

Beau Geste

Stories of Beau Geste, His Brothers, and Certain of Their Comrades in the French Foreign Legion

Good Gestes

Being Further Faites and Gestes of the Junior Curlton Club of Karabad, India, Whereof Some Were Heretofore Set Forth in the Book Yclept Dew and Mildew

The Young Stagers

The Story of Otho Bellême who "loved Chivalry, Truth and Honour, Freedom and Courtesy" But was Headstrong, Stubborn, Romantical and Most Unwise

Soldiers of Misfortune

The third in a series of novels on the French Foreign Legion service of Michael, Digby and John Geste.

Beau Ideal

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Beau Geste (EasyRead Edition)

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Beau Geste" by Percival Christopher Wren. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This is a new release of the original 1929 edition.

The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People who Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

Driftwood Spars

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Percival Christopher Wren's Foreign Legion Omnibus : Beau Geste, Beau Sabreur, Beau Ideal

There never lived a more honourable, upright, scrupulous gentleman than Major Hugh Walsingham Greene, and there seldom lived a duller, narrower, more pompous or more irascible one. Nor, when the Great War broke out, and gave him something fresh to do and to think about, were there many sadder and unhappier men. His had been a luckless and unfortunate life, what with his two wives and his one son; his excellent intentions and deplorable achievements; his kindly heart and harsh exterior; his narrow escapes of decoration, recognition and promotion. At cards he was not lucky—and in love he . . . well—his first wife, whom he adored, died after a year of him; and his second ran away after three months of his society. She ran away with Mr. Charles Stayne-Brooker (elsewhere the Herr Doktor Karl Stein-Brücker), the man of all men, whom he particularly and peculiarly loathed. And his son, his only son and heir! The boy was a bitter disappointment to him, turning out badly—a poet, an artist, a musician, a wretched student and “intellectual,” a fellow who won prizes and scholarships and suchlike by the hatful, and never carried off, or even tried for, a “pot,” in his life. Took after his mother, poor boy, and was the first of the family, since God-knows-when, to grow up a dam’ civilian. Father fought and bled in Egypt, South Africa, Burma, China, India; grandfather in the Crimea and Mutiny, great-grandfather in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, ancestors with Marlborough, the Stuarts, Drake—scores of them: and this chap, his son, theirdescendant, a wretched creature of whom you could no more make a soldier than you could make a service saddle of a sow’s ear! It was a comfort to the Major that he only saw the nincompoop on the rare occasions of his visits to England, when he honestly did his best to hide from the boy (who worshipped him) that he would sooner have seen him win one cup for boxing, than a hundred prizes for his confounded literature, art, music, classics, and study generally. To hide from the boy that the pæans of praise in his school reports were simply revolting—fit only for a feller who was going to be a wretched curate or wretcheder schoolmaster; to hide his distaste for the pale, slim beauty, which was that of a delicate girl rather than of the son of Major Hugh Walsingham Greene. . . . Too like his poor mother by half—and without one quarter the pluck, nerve, and “go” of young Miranda Walsingham, his kinswoman and playmate. . . . Too dam’ virtuous altogether.

Cupid in Africa

Wren's telling of the story of Damocles de Warrenne, and his life before, during, and after serving in the Second Regiment of Heavy Calvalry, known as the Queen's Greys. "When Colonel Matthew Devon de Warrenne, V.C., D.S.O., of the Queen's own Bombay Lancers, pinned his Victoria Cross to the bosom of his dying wife's night-dress, in token of his recognition that she was the braver of the twain, he was not himself."

Snake and Sword Illustrated

Captain Strong, although a soldier, the conditions of whose life were almost those of perpetual Active Service, was a student--and particularly a student of human nature. Throughout a life of great activity he found, and made, much opportunity for sitting in the stalls of the Theatre of Life and enjoying the Human Comedy. This East African shooting-trip with Lord Huntingten, Sir Montague, and Lady Merline, was affording him great entertainment, inasmuch as Huntingten had fallen in love with Lady Merline and did not know it. Lady Merline was falling in love with Huntingten and knew it only too well, and Merline loved them both. That there would be no sort or kind of "dénouement," in the vulgar sense, Captain Strong was well and gladly aware--for Huntingten was as honourable a man as ever lived, and Lady Merline just as admirable. No saner, wiser, nor better woman had Strong ever met, nor any as well balanced. Had there been any possibility of "developments," trouble, and the usual fiasco of scandal and the Divorce Court, he would have taken an early opportunity of leaving the party and rejoining his company at Mombasa. For Lord Huntingten was his school, Sandhurst and lifelong friend, while Merline was his brother-in-arms and comrade of many an unrecorded, nameless expedition, foray, skirmish, fight and adventure.

The Wages of Virtue

"Driftwood Spars" by Percival Christopher Wren. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life

"The Earlier India Novels Part B" contains the revised versions of the third and fourth novels written by Wren. Of the four novels comprising "The Earlier India Novels" by Wren, these novels are the closest to what Wren is most famous for: adventure stories. "The Snake and the Sword" is a tightly plotted novel and not a loose knit collection of stories. The major conflict results from the theory that a strong mental shock to a pregnant woman being trapped in a dark room with a snake trapped under her foot would influence the unborn child. This influence would be so strong the child would go into a seizure whenever he encounters a snake in his life. This child, Damocles de Warrenne, grows up the typical all around British empire builder, except for that he collapses at the sight of any snake (dead or alive!). "Driftwood Spars" is the last of the early India novels. It is the story, as the subtitle states "of a man, a boy, and a woman, and certain other people who strangely met upon the sea of life." The principal character is John Robin Ross-Ellison, a son of a Pathan chief and a Scots woman. Ross-Ellison, also known as Mir Jan in his Pathan persona is the connecting link for the other various characters in the novel. There are appendices in this volume that provide details on the significant differences between the first editions published by Longmans, Green, and the reprint editions published by John Murray after the success of "Beau Geste" in 1924.

The Snake and the Sword & Driftwood Spars

The Earlier India Novels Part B

One oppressive June evening, Lenore de Warrenne returned from church (where she had, as usual, prayed fervently that her soon-expected first-born might be a daughter), and entered her dressing-room. Here her Ayah divested her of hat, dress, and boots, and helped her into the more easeful tea-gown and satin slippers. "Bootlair wanting ishweets for dinner-table from go-down, please, Mem-Sahib," observed Ayah, the change of garb accomplished. "The butler wants sweets, does he? Give me my keys, then," replied Mrs. de Warrenne, and, rising with a sigh, she left the dressing-room and proceeded, via the dining-room (where she procured some small silver bowls, sweet-dishes, and trays), to the go-down or store-room, situate at the back of the bungalow and adjoining the "dispense-khana"—the room in which assemble the materials and ministrants of meals from the extra-mural "bowachi-khana" or kitchen. Unlocking the door of the go-down, Mrs. de Warrenne entered the small shelf-encircled room, and, stepping on to a low stool proceeded to fill the sweet-trays from divers jars, tins and boxes, with guava-cheese, crystallized ginger, kulwa, preserved mango and certain of the more sophisticated sweetmeats of the West. It was after sunset and the hamal had not yet lit the lamps, so that this pantry, a dark room at mid-day, was far from light at that time. But for the fact that she knew exactly where everything was, and could put her hand on what she wanted, she would not have entered without a light.

Snake and Sword: A Novel

This edition of Snake and Sword A Novel by Percival Christopher Wren is given by Ashed Phoenix - Million Book Edition

Snake and Sword

A few weeks after applying at the proper military headquarters, I received orders to appear before the Conseil de Revision with my papers, at the Town Hall of my native district; and, with a hundred or so other young men of every social class and kind, was duly examined, physically and mentally. Soon after this, I received a notice directing me to present myself at the cavalry barracks, to be examined in equitation. If I failed in the test, I could not enter a cavalry regiment as a one-year Volontaire. I passed all right, of course, and, a little later, received my feuille de route and notification that I was posted to the Blue Hussars and was to proceed forthwith to their barracks at St. Denis, and report myself. I had spent the interval, partly with my mother and her people, the Carys; and partly in Paris with a Lieutenant de Lannec, appointed my guide, philosopher and friend by my uncle, under whom de Lannec was then working at the War Office. To this gentleman I was indebted for much good advice and innumerable hints and tips that proved invaluable. Also for the friendship of the dear clever little Véronique Vaux, and, most of all, for that of Raoul d'Auray de Redon, at a later date. To de Lannec I owed it that if in my raw-recruit days I was a fool, I was not a sanguinary fool; and that I escaped most of the pit-falls digged for the feet of the unwary by those who had themselves only become wary by painful experience therein. Thanks to him, I also knew enough to engage permanently a private room for myself at a hotel in St. Denis, where I could have meals and a bath; to have my cavalry boots and uniform privately made for me; and to equip myself with a spare complete outfit of all those articles of clothing and of use, the loss or lack of which brings the private soldier to so much trouble and punishment.

Percival Christopher Wren

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