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Beau Geste (Reader's Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers)
Beau Geste - Reader's Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers Author:Percival C. Wren In the scorched desert wastes a detachment of the French Foreign Legion is approaching the lonely outpost of Zinderneuf. There is a mystery surrounding this doomed fort, and in a very strange way it is linked to the lovely, peaceful English manor of Brandon Abbas. It was here that Beau, Digby, and John Geste grew up, and it was here, one pleasan... more »t summer evening of the long vacation, that something happened to change the course of their lives, spinning the thread of fate that bound Brandon Abbas to Zinderneuf.
The man who wrote Beau Geste once served with the Foreign Legion himself. Percival Christopher Wren was born in Devonshire, England, a descendant of the Christopher Wren who designed Saint Paul's Cathedral. After attending Oxford he spent five years in travel, working his way as sailor, tramp, schoolmaster, journalist, farm laborer, explorer, hunter, and even as a vegetable vendor in the slums of London.
Eventually chance took him to India, where he remained for ten years; and it was here that he started writing. Beau Geste was published in 1924, and it was an instant and runaway success -- first as a book, then as a play, and finally as a film.
Although Wren wrote approximately forty books, he is known and loved principally for those, like Beau Sabreur, which also deal with the adventures of the Geste family. He died in 1941.« less