A series of stories of Biggles' flights of daring in WWI -- each chapter standing alone in plot, but forming an emotional arc (early on he mentions never touching whiskey; later on as his CO and friends worry about him they remark on his drinking rather a lot of the stuff) until the final ironic end. Absolutely jam-packed with jargon, it's like learning a new language. ( )

The first Biggles stories, 17 of them, originally published in some magazine. This Biggles is a lot more emotional, angry, not in control, than later Biggles. Maybe you could say more immature.

The author mentions that Biggles could never have existed but that he represents the emotions and spirit of RFC (Royal Flying Corps), the predecessor of RAF. The stories are of course dated, but still reasonably entertaining. ( )

Slightly different writing style to the later books - but grittier and more authentic in some ways. ( )

I hated the first couple of pages; I didn't get what was happening in the story. Then I decided to back up and just read it and go with it, not trying to figure out every little anachronistic aviation term. I got it. I flew with these very, very young pilots in World War I. It is a ride. A real ride in the air and a ride through time. It's full of all the things that the book police would hate today: shooting, killing others with a sense of triumph, hatred for other peoples. But, nevertheless, a fabulous adventure book. ( )

This was a strange experience. I was returning to a book I had tried to read when I was six or seven years old. It was a bit too much for me at that time, and I did not quite manage it; but here and there a sentence would strike me as familiar and I would think: Yes, I read that fifty years ago.

(A year or two later, I became a great fan of Biggles - particularly of the World War Two stories.)

So how do these stories strike me now - as an adult?

Well, firstly they do come across as quite authentic. I have read that W E John was actually a bomber rather than a fighter pilot. But he certainly absorbed enough knowledge to make the aerial dog-fights quite convincing. The book does not exactly dwell on the ghastliness and bloodiness of war, but at least never thinks to conceal that people were killed frequently, nastily and often randomly. (it occurs to me that nowadays many parents or teachers would try to shield a seven-year old from this book.)

Biggles himself does not come across as quite the peerless hero. He drinks, smokes, is not gallant about his enemies - one can imagine the expletives he probably uses about the "Huns", though these are of course left out. And I am not sure that he is particularly heroic. He is fearless (not quite the same thing), resourceful and capable. But he is not on any kind of mission for his country or his ideals or his god. He is just getting on with getting on with things. He is fighting the Germans, because that is what he is there for. A melancholy character - though apparently scarcely out of his teens.

And by the way, this is the book that gives lie to the old sneer - because I am afraid that it WAS a sneer - that Biggles was gay. His heart is broken by a girl who proves to be a German spy. He never recovered and was never again much interested in the other gender.