The very first Biggles book, The Camels Are Coming, is one of 16 titles that are to be reissued in hardback form over the next two years.
Rights to the books, written by former WWI pilot W E Johns, have been acquired by publisher Canelo which has already reissued 12 of the later books.
“The newly acquired titles include Biggles’ adventures in the First World War,” said a statement from Canelo.
“They feature breathtaking dogfights above the trenches, some of Biggles’ adventures between the world wars, and some classic World War Two Biggles adventures to join Canelo’s existing WW2 Biggles list.”
The titles will be published in four series (Biggles’ WW1 Adventures, Biggles Between the Wars, Biggles’ WW2 Adventures and Biggles, Special Air Detective), which will each have their own identifiable branding.
They will all be available as ebooks within the 2024 calendar year, and will be issued in hardback, two every spring, summer and autumn, across 2024–2026.
William Earl Johns was an English adventure writer, best known as the creator of Biggles in 1932. After his flying career with the RAF, Johns became a newspaper air correspondent, an occupation he combined with editing and illustrating books about flying. He wrote over 160 books, including nearly 100 Biggles titles.
Canelo Commissioning Editor Craig Lye said,”Like so many others, I devoured the Biggles stories as a child, thrilling at the air-bound escapades of the eponymous hero and his companions as they risked it all above the vast waste of No Man’s Land.”
The first four Biggles ebooks (Biggles: The Camels Are Coming, Biggles of the Fighter Squadron, Biggles Learns to Fly and Biggles: The Cruise of the Condor) will be published in May 2024, with the first hardback editions (Biggles: The Camels Are Coming and Biggles of the Fighter Squadron) on 18 July 2024.
