Percival Christopher Wren (1 November 1875 – 22 November 1941) was an English writer, mostly of adventure fiction. He is remembered best for the 1924 book Beau Geste which involves the French Foreign Legion in North Africa and was adapted to film several times. This was one of 33 novels and short story collections that he wrote, mostly dealing with colonial soldiering in Africa.
Early life
Percival Christopher Wren was born at 37 Warwick Street in Deptford, South London, England, the son of a schoolmaster John Wilkins Wren, and his wife Ellen nee Sasbury. His literary influences included Frederick Marryat, R. M. Ballantyne, G. A. Henty, and H. Rider Haggard. He took a MA from Oxford University's Delegacy for Non-Collegiate Students, in 1931 renamed St Catherine's Society, now St Catherine's College, Oxford but then a non-collegiate institution for poorer students. Wren claimed to have worked as a navvy, deckhand, costermonger and fairground boxer during a three-year period between school and Oxford, as well as briefly enlisting in the British Army's 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays).
Wren worked as a schoolmaster in a prep school for a few years, during which he married Alice Shovelier in 1899, and had a daughter (Estelle, born 1901). In 1903, he joined the Indian Education Service as headmaster of Karachi High School, serving until 1910. From 1910 to 1914 he was assistand director of public instruction in Bombay. Between 1904 and 1906 he also worked with the Educational Inspectorate for Sind and lectured at a teachers' training college.
