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(1990) Twentieth-century suspense, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
A society of murderers run on sound conservative lines
the life and times of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond
Hans Bertens
pp. 51-68
When (ex-)Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Herman McNeile died, at the age of forty-eight, 1937, he had for more than twenty years been one of Britain's most popular authors. McNeile, a professional soldier who had been commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1907, started writing brisk and affectionate stories that featured simple, but plucky and resourceful, Tommies almost immediately after reaching France with the British Expeditionary Force in 1914. His stance of affectionate toughness suggested to the home front the cool dedication it expected of its military representatives abroad, and "Sapper" (the pseudonym was created by Lord Northcliffe of the Daily Mail) quickly rose to fame. His first collection, Sergeant Michael Cassidy, RE, was published in June 1915 and sold very well indeed (50,000 copies in the first nine months).1
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20678-0_4
Full citation:
Bertens, H. (1990)., A society of murderers run on sound conservative lines: the life and times of Sapper's Bulldog Drummond, in C. Bloom (ed.), Twentieth-century suspense, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 51-68.
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