THE CAMELS ARE COMING - HOW TO IDENTIFY THE FIRST EDITION
by Roger Harris
A Genuine First Edition Dust Wrapper for “The Camels are
Coming”. The book was priced 7/6 at the
bottom of the front inner flap.
'The Camels are Coming' was the very
first Biggles book ever published. The
Biggles stories had first been published in 'Popular Flying' Magazine edited by W. E.
Johns. He wanted a character to
represent the real pilots he knew and so he wrote the first Biggles story - 'The White
Fokker' - for the April 1932 first edition of 'Popular Flying'
which
was actually published on Wednesday 16th March 1932 by a London company
called John Hamilton Ltd of 32 Bloomsbury Street, London, W.C.1. Seven Biggles stories ran in the first seven
monthly issues of 'Popular
Flying' from April to October 1932. All seven of these stories were originally
credited to “William Earle” presumably to disguise the fact that they were
written by the editor of the magazine, W. E. Johns. Incidentally, Johns real first names were
“William Earl” without the ‘e’ on the end but he used ‘William Earle’ with an
‘e’ as a pen name. These original seven
stories were published with ten further stories as the first Biggles book, 'The Camels are
Coming'. The credit on the
outside of the dust wrapper was “W.E. Johns” with just “Johns” on the
spine. Inside the front flap the credit
was ‘The Camels are Coming’ by Flying Officer W. E. Johns. (You can see examples of the front flaps
below). On the title of the printed
book itself, the credit was ‘The Camels are Coming’ by W. E.
Johns (William Earle), presumably for the benefit of people who had read the
original stories in ‘Popular Flying’ so they knew it was the same author.
The book itself was also published by
John Hamilton Ltd, who tended to specialise in aviation books. The book was published on Wednesday 7th
September 1932, exactly 25 weeks after the first appearance of Biggles in
the first issue of 'Popular Flying'. How can we be so precise about the date? Well, there exists a lovely first edition of
the book in a very good dust wrapper that was a review copy and still has the
slip inside it giving the date of publication.
You can find out more about that particular book below.
The Camels are Coming was published in,
it is believed, NINE editions by John Hamilton (if you click
on the word ‘nine’ it takes you to the ‘Biggles Online’
website setting out the details of those nine different John Hamilton editions). The first edition was published on 7th
September 1932, with the next edition following either in the October or
November 1932. This second edition can
be identified by the 28 page Autumn 1932 catalogue in the back. There was then a third edition published
around March 1933. This third edition
can be identified by the 16 page “Spring List of Sundial Editions 1933”
catalogue in the back.
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This is the
catalogue at the back of the second edition |
This is the
first page of the catalogue at the back of the second edition |
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This is the
catalogue at the back of the third edition |
This is the
first page of the catalogue at the back of the third edition |
All three of these books were 259 pages
long and had seventeen line drawn illustrations by W. E. Johns himself. There is an illustration at the start of each
of the seventeen individual stories.
None of these first three editions have a colour frontispiece.
In the March 1933 edition of 'Popular
Flying' Magazine there is an advert on the back page stating
"Flying-Officer W. E. Johns has autographed one hundred copies of each of
his books, "Fighting Planes and Aces" and "The Camels are Coming". “These signed copies are now available”. I strongly suspect that the 100 signed copies
of “The Camels are Coming” were the newly published third editions. Does anyone out there have one? If so, I would love to hear from you! E-mail me at rogerharris@biggles.info. I have never seen one of these signed “third
edition” Camels are Coming books – but I do own (what I believe to be) one of
the 100 signed copies of “Fighting Planes and Aces” in original
dustjacket that was also advertised.
The price of the first three editions
was 7 shillings and 6 pence. The first
three editions of the book all had 259 pages and I have noted a distinctive
typing error in these books. There is a clear error in the text which
occurs in the first three editions only, on page 224 of the story "THE
FOG!". The code number of the spy
is given incorrectly as "2792" when it should be "2742". Below you can see the error. On page 220, six lines down, a spy identifies
himself only by a four digit number - "2742". However, on the last page of the story, page
224, when Biggles gives credit to the spy who helped him, the spy is referred
to by the wrong number(!) - "2792".
This error was corrected in later editions of the book. It is these three editions that are
particularly sought after, as later editions of the books were in the “Ace
Series” with only 220 pages.
A fourth edition of 'The Camels are
Coming' was published in either October 1933 (when advertised in Popular Flying
at 3/6) or April 1934 (when listed by the English Catalogue of Books). I am of the opinion it was the latter date as
the dust jacket features the title “Biggles of
the Camel Squadron” on the rear and that book was published in March
1934. These later editions of ‘The
Camels are Coming’ were published by John Hamilton in their "ACE Series”
and this time the price of the book dropped to a more affordable 3 shillings 6
pence. From this fourth edition onwards,
the book now featured a colour frontispiece which was not in the first
three editions. Like the illustrations
in the first three editions of the book, this colour frontispiece was painted
by W. E. Johns himself. The page count
was reduced to 220 pages and the error with regard to the number of the spy was
corrected. The reduced page count
doesn’t reflect any loss of content. The
size of the type face was reduced and so each page contained more text than the
earlier editions.
Below is the
colour frontispiece - this picture is taken from my own copy of the ninth and
final John Hamilton edition. You can
just make out the signature “Johns” in the bottom right hand corner of the
picture.
I suspect it is unlikely you will ever be able to use this next
bit of information. That is because it
is so hard to find ANY original dust jacket for THE CAMELS ARE COMING, let
alone the first edition jacket. However,
there is a way to tell whether the dust jacket is a FIRST EDITION dust jacket
or not! This is because the lay-out of the
wording on the front flap of the FIRST EDITION dust jacket for ‘The Camels are
Coming’ is UNIQUE.' Firstly, I need to
acknowledge my fellow collector Mr. Renzo Paganuzzi, for alerting to me to the
fact the wording differed. Then I need
to explain it in some detail with illustrations: -
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THIS IS THE LAY OUT OF THE WORDING ON THE FRONT FLAP OF THE
VERY FIRST EDITION OF THE
JOHN HAMILTON VERSION OF “THE CAMELS ARE COMING” IT IS LAID OUT DIFFERENTLY AS FOLLOWS THE CAMELS ARE COMING By FLYING OFFICER
W.E. JOHNS An exciting
story of the flying adventures of
Capt. James Big- gglesworth. “Biggles” is a fictitious character, yet
he could have been found in any
R.F.C. Mess during those great days
of 1917 and 1918, when air combat
had become the order of the day
and air duelling was a fine art. He represents
the spirit of the R.F.C.,
daring and deadly when in the air, devil-may-care and debo- nair when on the ground.
In those event- ful years, every
day – almost every hour – brought
adventure, tragic or humorous, to the
man in the air. |
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THIS IS THE LAY OUT OF THE WORDING ON THE FRONT FLAP OF ALL
JOHN HAMILTON EDITIONS OF “THE CAMELS ARE COMING” EXCEPT THE FIRST
EDITION. IT IS LAID OUT AS FOLLOWS THE CAMELS ARE COMING By FLYING OFFICER
W.E. JOHNS An exciting
story of the flying adventures of
Capt. James Big- gglesworth. “Biggles” is a fictitious character, yet
he could have been found in any
R.F.C. Mess during those great days
of 1917 and 1918, when air combat
had become the order of the day
and air duelling was a fine art. He represents the spirit of the R.F.C.,
daring and deadly when in the air,
devil-may-care and debonair when on the
ground. In those event- ful years, every
day – almost every hour – brought
adventure, tragic or humorous, to the
man in the air. |
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YOU CAN CHECK THIS
INFORMATION OUT ON THE FOUR FRONT FLAPS OF THE FIRST FOUR EDITIONS OF “THE
CAMELS ARE COMING” SET OUT BELOW
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FRONT FLAP OF
A FIRST EDITION |
FRONT FLAP OF
A SECOND EDITION |
FRONT FLAP OF
A THIRD EDITION |
FRONT FLAP OF
A FOURTH EDITION |
IF YOU CAN FIND
A JOHN HAMILTON VERSION OF “THE CAMELS ARE COMING”, IT WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY
HAVE LONG AGO LOST THE DUST JACKET.
LUCKILY, THERE IS AN EXTREMELY EASY AND
OBVIOUS WAY TO TELL IF YOU HAVE A FIRST EDITION OF “THE CAMELS ARE COMING” BY
LOOKING AT THE SPINE
YOU WILL SEE THAT
THE JOHN HAMILTON “SUNDIAL” LOGO IS HALF-WAY UP THE SPINE - THIS IS COMPLETELY
UNIQUE TO THE FIRST EDITION OF “THE CAMELS ARE COMING”
At one stage I was lucky enough to own
THREE copies of the first edition. It
took me over ten years of seriously collecting the works of W. E. Johns to even
find one. The first time I obtained a
copy, I bought it from a bookshop in America (of all places) and I received it
on 27th October 2010. I know the precise
date as it was such a memorable occasion for me. In due course, I was able to find and buy a
first edition of THE CAMELS ARE COMING, that was inscribed and signed by W. E.
Johns himself! That is something I
thought I would never be able to get. A
true signed first edition of the first Biggles book. The REAL Holy Grail of Biggles collecting! I know of no other signed first edition in
the world, it may be unique. If you have
one, please contact me and let me know.
The photos I did for my website below are
of the first copy I ever obtained. The
boards of this first edition are slightly worn and the gold lettering on the
spine has faded but of course, around 80 years had passed since publication
(it’s now 90 years!). Sadly, this copy
did not have an original dust wrapper. I
have displayed photographs of my original first edition to show the dimensions
of the book and also to show what the first few pages look like to assist
people in identifying first editions of the book. The top pages of the first edition were
originally tinted black. I believe this
was the case for the first three editions of the book.
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Above you can
see half a dozen pictures of the size of the first edition book cover. The book is 190 millimetres long and is 30
millimetres wide (compared to a fourth edition copy which is 40 millimetres
wide). The depth is 130 millimetres
from the back of the spine to the tip of the cover. You can also
see the first few pages of the book leading up to the "Forward" by
W. E. Johns. You will notice that no
other books published by John Hamilton are referred to in the preliminary
pages. This feature is unique to the
first three editions of "The Camels are Coming". As with all
of the John Hamilton books, there is no publication date. |
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Although
generally speaking, it is hard to determine the different John Hamilton
editions of "The Camels are Coming", the first edition itself is very
easy to determine. The first edition is
the only edition to have the John Hamilton logo of a sundial half way up the
spine. Here is a picture of a near mint
copy of the first edition with an unfaded spine.
The boards are
said to be black but it may be the case that they are in fact a very, very dark
blue. It is very hard to tell. The general consensus of opinion is that the
boards are black. But if you have a copy
of 'The Camels are Coming' with black boards and the sundial logo halfway up
the spine - then congratulations - because you have an elusive first edition of
"The Camels are Coming" - the "Holy
Grail" of Biggles collecting!
I have heard it rumoured that only 2000 copies of the first edition were
ever published but I cannot be definitive about that. The bulk of the publication run would have
then gone to libraries. Certainly, the
first edition is astonishingly rare as are the second and third editions. By the time the second edition was printed
the John Hamilton 'sundial' logo had moved to the bottom of the spine. The pictures below are of the second edition
and an original dust wrapper from that second edition.
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Just a brief note about "old
money". Prior to decimalisation
there were 12 pence to a shilling and 20 shillings to a pound - so there were
240 pence in a pound. 7 shillings and 6
pence was therefore 90 pence (pence was referred to by the letter "d"
in old money). When the price dropped to
3 shillings and 6 pence this was only 42 pence.
On decimalisation, a shilling became 5 new pence so in "new
money" the book would have cost 37.5 pence on first publication reducing
to 17.5 pence from the fourth edition onwards.
How much would it cost now? Well, the
review copy I referred to earlier was sold on "ABE"
(www.abebooks.com) in February 2011 for $17,754 - see the box below. This was £10,995. It had previously sold at Sotheby’s Auction
House on 16th December 2010 for £7000. I attach some pictures of this fantastic
first edition book and like the rest of us dedicated Biggles collectors we can
merely look at it with awe and envy.
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And here is a final word on the rarity of the first book from W.
E. Johns himself …….
“As for the first Biggles
books I wouldn’t hold out much hope.
“The Camels are Coming”. No. 1.
is now a collector’s piece.
I have only my file copy – and have refused substantial offers
for it from people who are trying to get the complete saga, now 80 books.
Unfortunately I sold this book outright and so lost control. It has been reissued many times
by publishers for the chain stores but never under the original
title ……….”
And finally ………. Here is a real treat
for the dedicated fan who made their way down to the bottom of this page.
I believe this to be the ORIGINAL
artwork from the cover of THE CAMELS ARE COMING painted by Johns himself
