Snake and sword, a NOVEL. By

Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 - 22 November 1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for Beau Geste, a much-filmed book of 1924, involving the French Foreign Legion in North Africa. This was one of 33 novels and short story collections that he wrote, mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa. Percival Christopher Wren was born in Deptford, South London, England, the son of a schoolmaster. His literary influences included Frederick Marryat, R. M. Ballantyne, G. A. Henty, and H. Rider Haggard. He graduated with a Master of Arts degree from St Catherine's Society, now St Catherine's College, Oxford but then a non-collegiate institution for poorer students. Wren subsequently claimed to have worked as a navvy, deckhand costermonger and fairground boxer during a three-year period between school and Oxford, as well as enlisting briefly as a cavalry trooper in the Queen's Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards)