Nudgee College Library

Book Information

Author:

Captain W E Johns

Date:

1932-1970

Genre:

Adventure

Library Reference:

F JOH

May 22, 2009
by Martin Kerby - Head of Information Services

Long before JK Rowling penned a few stories about a teenage wizard, or Stephanie Meyer decided that a vampire love story might potentially attract a wide audience, generations of schoolboys enjoyed the adventures of fictional characters such as William Brown and John Jennings. The "Just William" series, written by Richard Crompton first appeared in book form in 1922. Eventually Crompton would write 34 books detailing the adventures of his trouble prone protagonist. I was introduced to the series in the late seventies by my father who had read them when he was a child. At about the same time, a school friend introduced me to Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings series. Buckeridge wrote the first of the series in 1950, with the 23rd and final one appearing in 1994. The series is named for his main character, a teenager at an English boarding school. In some respects the stories are not entirely dissimilar to Harry Potter minus the magic and the female students.

But without a doubt my favourite was the Biggles adventure series written by Captain WE Johns, who had been a pilot during World War One. Though he wrote 169 books, it was the 96 he wrote about James Bigglesworth, pilot and adventurer, which brought Johns fame and fortune. The Library has a copy of an omnibus which has four classic Biggles adventures - Biggles Secret Agent, Biggles and the Secret Mission, Biggles Flying Dectective and Biggles in Australia. In the introduction, an un-named author discussed the appeal of the Biggles series:

Johns’ expertise helped to put boys of all ages in the pilot’s seat, if only in their mind’s eye, adding an extra element of excitement to his stories, but a Biggles adventure was never solely about soaring through the clouds. Johns was also a master storyteller, taking his hero through almost one hundred books over a period of more than thirty years from 1932 right up to his death in 1968…These characters embodied the spirit of the British fighting man…They were courageous and uncompromising in battle, yet still managed to retain a notion of fair play; they were highly skilled professionals, adept at handling all manner of technical equipment, yet they could improvise ingeniously when all was not going to plan and they were left to survive on their wits alone.

Biggles books are now a collector's item, although most of mine were reprints that I bought in various second hand shops. Any student who would like to begin a series large enough to provide many years of reading should look for the Biggles omnibus at F JOH.