Percival Christopher Wren

Snake and Sword (Dodo Press) Percival Christopher Wren

Percival Christopher Wren (1875-1941) was a British writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, and its sequels, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal. After graduation with an MA from St Catherine's College, Oxford, a non-collegiate college for poorer students, Percy worked as a boarding school teacher for a few years. In 1903 he joined the Indian Education Service as headmaster of Karachi High School. While in India, he joined the Poona Volunteer Rifles with the rank as Captain, before his service was terminated in 1915 after sick leave. He lived out the remainder of his life in England concentrating on his literary career. Wren was a highly secretive man. When his novels became famous, there was a mysterious absence of authenticating photographs of him as a legionnaire or of the usual press-articles by old comrades wanting to cash in on their memories of a celebrated figure. Wren dedicated an early edition of Snake and Sword (1914) to "my wife Alice Lucille Wren". An early edition of Driftwood Spars (1916) reads "To the memory of my beloved wife".