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The others joined in the famous refrain, roaring it at the top of their voices.
'Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum.'
Algy, looking through the loophole, saw the astonished faces of the soldiers peering out of the jungle. "They think we've gone crazy," he declared.
Biggles nodded. "They're not far wrong, either," he murmured drily. Then his eyes glinted. "Avast there, pipe down," he cried. "Here comes the boat."
The one where Biggles and crew play pirates! Literally. They not only get involved in a pirate adventure, but they dress up as pirate, fly the Jolly Roger, and take on pirate names from Treasure Island I swear to God. Biggles is Captain Smollett. It's hilarious.
It begins with a historical prologue about pirates and a cursed doubloon which is the most piratical thing I have ever read. It's absolutely delightful. In another universe, Johns wrote historical adventures and they were great.
The main story begins with a teenage boy named Dick living mostly on his own. He gets the tragic news that his father, a sailor, has died, but managed to send him 1) a letter describing how he found a cache of pirate treasure on an uninhabited island and how his shipmate tried to kill him for it and now he's dying, 2) a rather vague map to the treasure, 3) one gold doubloon.
No sooner has Dick received this than the shipmate bursts in and tries to kill him and steal the doubloon, letter, and map. (The shipmate knows about the island and treasure, but not the exact location of the treasure itself.) He flees and runs straight into Biggles and friends! After some adventures, Biggles agrees to fly Dick out to the island so they can all go treasure hunting.
Unfortunately, they are burdened with the doubloon, which the readers knows from the prologue is cursed. Literally everything goes wrong, starting with their attempt to take a taxi to a restaurant!
Once on the island, the pirate adventures truly begin. It's absolutely hilariously and amazingly piratical. It has EVERY pirate trope except a parrot (but it does have an albatross). Biggles is totally aware of how ridiculous it all is and throws himself into it with boyish enthusiasm, even giving everyone nicknames from Treasure Island.
It's completely delightful and an excellent example of writing different genres within the same series, and I would enthusiastically recommend it...
...but it does have a caveat, and it's a pretty big one. I'm sure by now you can guess what it is. The overall racism content is mostly in the mild-moderate range, and it's intermittent rather than pervasive, BUT it also includes several casual uses of the n-word. If I was reissuing this book I would remove them, and I wish someone had. I don't think even Johns would object, as judging by later books he appears to have met some actual Black people in the interim.
ETA: Apparently some editions DID remove it thank God. I am going to exchange my super-racist copy forthwith.
Re: the cover: Yes. I know.
'Drink and the devil had done for the rest,
Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum.'
Algy, looking through the loophole, saw the astonished faces of the soldiers peering out of the jungle. "They think we've gone crazy," he declared.
Biggles nodded. "They're not far wrong, either," he murmured drily. Then his eyes glinted. "Avast there, pipe down," he cried. "Here comes the boat."
The one where Biggles and crew play pirates! Literally. They not only get involved in a pirate adventure, but they dress up as pirate, fly the Jolly Roger, and take on pirate names from Treasure Island I swear to God. Biggles is Captain Smollett. It's hilarious.
It begins with a historical prologue about pirates and a cursed doubloon which is the most piratical thing I have ever read. It's absolutely delightful. In another universe, Johns wrote historical adventures and they were great.
The main story begins with a teenage boy named Dick living mostly on his own. He gets the tragic news that his father, a sailor, has died, but managed to send him 1) a letter describing how he found a cache of pirate treasure on an uninhabited island and how his shipmate tried to kill him for it and now he's dying, 2) a rather vague map to the treasure, 3) one gold doubloon.
No sooner has Dick received this than the shipmate bursts in and tries to kill him and steal the doubloon, letter, and map. (The shipmate knows about the island and treasure, but not the exact location of the treasure itself.) He flees and runs straight into Biggles and friends! After some adventures, Biggles agrees to fly Dick out to the island so they can all go treasure hunting.
Unfortunately, they are burdened with the doubloon, which the readers knows from the prologue is cursed. Literally everything goes wrong, starting with their attempt to take a taxi to a restaurant!
Once on the island, the pirate adventures truly begin. It's absolutely hilariously and amazingly piratical. It has EVERY pirate trope except a parrot (but it does have an albatross). Biggles is totally aware of how ridiculous it all is and throws himself into it with boyish enthusiasm, even giving everyone nicknames from Treasure Island.
It's completely delightful and an excellent example of writing different genres within the same series, and I would enthusiastically recommend it...
...but it does have a caveat, and it's a pretty big one. I'm sure by now you can guess what it is. The overall racism content is mostly in the mild-moderate range, and it's intermittent rather than pervasive, BUT it also includes several casual uses of the n-word. If I was reissuing this book I would remove them, and I wish someone had. I don't think even Johns would object, as judging by later books he appears to have met some actual Black people in the interim.
ETA: Apparently some editions DID remove it thank God. I am going to exchange my super-racist copy forthwith.
Re: the cover: Yes. I know.
From:
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NOOOOOOO but also, how interesting - because the ebook version I have doesn't have those, so clearly whatever edition this particular ebook is working off of *did* have it removed.
This one wasn't really that much of a favorite because I'm just not really into the tropes, but he certainly did go Full Pirate in every possible way. Biggles's enthusiasm about it is really adorable.
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I do like pirates so it was incredibly fun for me. I'm with Biggles - old-school pirates are awesome.
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I do really love how the books constantly change genres. Now that we've talked about it, I keep thinking about it. This is probably at least part of what made him able to write 100 of them (literally) without getting bored.
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I love how WEJ goes all-in on everything, even the cursed treasure, nobody has that doubloon more than five minutes before things start going wrong. Also some excellent Presumed Dead with Biggles.
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A while ago you linked a site with all the Biggles books uploaded on it, and the copy of Flies West there doesn't have any slurs. (Also doesn't have that amazing cover illustration, sadly. The entire cover department must have had a fantastic time with that...)
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The defence of the fort, complete with centuries-old pirate clothing, is a joy.
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The only known cases of pirates burying treasure were when Sir Francis Drake had more than he could carry off and buried some in hopes of coming back (less than a mile off, so that didn't work) and Captain Kidd keeping it safe while he tried to negotiate with the authorities (that didn't work, either), but yet the tradition remains.
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If you really love pirate stories, then WEJohns also wrote a non-fiction Book of Pirates, recounting the tales of pirates from Julius Caesar onwards. He also wrote the Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting which mainly concentrates, sadly, not on Biggles, but on famous lost, often pirate, treasures.
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http://www.wejohns.com/Factual/Biggles%20Book%20of%20Treasure%20Hunting/
Roger Harris's (Dr Biggles's) information on Modern Boys Book of Pirates (interestingly, W E Johns is Flying Officer not Captain on the jacket) and The Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting.
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Wiki says that was his substantive (permanent) rank in the post-war RAF, and there's some suggestion there he never was a Captain (which would have been in the RFC before the RAF was created in 1918, Flying Officer equates to Lieutenant in the Army system), but I tend to think he would have been called out on using a rank to which he wasn't entitled when he started with it in the 1930s. Creating the RAF out of the RFC and RNAS meant combining two different rank systems (Army and Royal Navy) into one entirely new one and it's entirely possible some acting ranks got downgraded in the process. It's interesting to read that his post-war service was as a recruiting officer, which would probably have brought him into contact with a bunch of teens and given him a feel for what would work in stories aimed at them.
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I don't think he ever set out to write children's books: he wrote the first Biggles stories for a flying magazine he worked for and also tried his hand at adult fiction. I think he ended up as a children's author as that was what he was asked to write and what sold.
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What a pity these haven't been re-printed - I bet the sales would be brisk.
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I still prefer Dick to Ginger, though they occupy much the same story space - probably because I encountered Dick first. I sometimes wonder whether he survived the war, given the casualty rates in the Merchant Navy. :(