What do you think?
Rate this book
The Zeppelin Destroyer: Being Some Chapters of Secret History
This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1916 edition by Hodder and Stoughton, London, New York, Toronto..
Paperback
First published January 1, 1916
2 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
William Le Queux
417 books29 followersWilliam Tufnell Le Queux was born in London on 2 July 1864. His father, also William of Chateauroux, Indre, was a French draper's assistant and his mother was English.
He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio Spiridon in Paris. He walked extensively in France and Germany and supported himself for a time writing for French newspapers. It was one of his sensational stories in 'The Petit Journal' that attracted the attention of the French novelist Emile Zola and it was supposedly he who encouraged Le Queux to become a full-time writer.
In the late 1880s he returned to London where he edited the magazines 'Gossip' and 'Piccadilly' before joining the staff of the newspaper 'The Globe' in 1891 as a parliamentary reporter. But he resigned in 1893 and decided to abandon journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. And his extensive travelling saw him visit Russia, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and in 1912-13 he was a correspondent in the Balkan War for the Daily Mail. On his travels he found it necessary to become an expert revolver shot.
His first book was 'Guilty Bonds' (1891), which concentrated on political conspiracy in Russia to such a degree that it was subsequently banned in that country. A series of short stories 'Strange Tales of a Nihilist' followed in 1892 and from then on he was producing books on a regular basis until his death, and beyond, as a number of posthumous works were published.
His works mainly related to espionage activity and it was said that he was employed for a number of years as a member of the British Secret Service, where he was an expert on wireless transmission. He did claim to have been the first wireless experimenter to have broadcast from his station at Guildford in 1920/21 and he was president of the Wireless Experimental Association and a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
He stated at one time that he began writing to help finance his work for British Intelligence for whom he was required to undertake much travelling and to make personal contact with royalty and other high-ranking people. He recorded some of the latter meetings in his autobiography entitled 'Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks' (1923).
He was at one time Consul of the Republic of San Marino and he possessed Italian, Serbian and Montenegrin decorations. He was also a keen collector of medieval manuscripts and monastic seals.
However, all his activities did not stop him turning out novel after novel and at the time of his death he had well over 100 books to his credit.
After several weeks' illness, he died at Knocke, Belgium, in the early hours of 13 October 1927. His body was returned to England and on 19 October he was cremated at Golders Green with the Reverend Francis Taylor of Bedford conducting the service, which was attended by Le Queux's brother and a few intimate friends.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2013
He was educated in Europe and studied art under Ignazio Spiridon in Paris. He walked extensively in France and Germany and supported himself for a time writing for French newspapers. It was one of his sensational stories in 'The Petit Journal' that attracted the attention of the French novelist Emile Zola and it was supposedly he who encouraged Le Queux to become a full-time writer.
In the late 1880s he returned to London where he edited the magazines 'Gossip' and 'Piccadilly' before joining the staff of the newspaper 'The Globe' in 1891 as a parliamentary reporter. But he resigned in 1893 and decided to abandon journalism to concentrate on writing and travelling. And his extensive travelling saw him visit Russia, the Near East, North Africa, Egypt and the Sudan and in 1912-13 he was a correspondent in the Balkan War for the Daily Mail. On his travels he found it necessary to become an expert revolver shot.
His first book was 'Guilty Bonds' (1891), which concentrated on political conspiracy in Russia to such a degree that it was subsequently banned in that country. A series of short stories 'Strange Tales of a Nihilist' followed in 1892 and from then on he was producing books on a regular basis until his death, and beyond, as a number of posthumous works were published.
His works mainly related to espionage activity and it was said that he was employed for a number of years as a member of the British Secret Service, where he was an expert on wireless transmission. He did claim to have been the first wireless experimenter to have broadcast from his station at Guildford in 1920/21 and he was president of the Wireless Experimental Association and a member of the Institute of Radio Engineers.
He stated at one time that he began writing to help finance his work for British Intelligence for whom he was required to undertake much travelling and to make personal contact with royalty and other high-ranking people. He recorded some of the latter meetings in his autobiography entitled 'Things I Know about Kings, Celebrities and Crooks' (1923).
He was at one time Consul of the Republic of San Marino and he possessed Italian, Serbian and Montenegrin decorations. He was also a keen collector of medieval manuscripts and monastic seals.
However, all his activities did not stop him turning out novel after novel and at the time of his death he had well over 100 books to his credit.
After several weeks' illness, he died at Knocke, Belgium, in the early hours of 13 October 1927. His body was returned to England and on 19 October he was cremated at Golders Green with the Reverend Francis Taylor of Bedford conducting the service, which was attended by Le Queux's brother and a few intimate friends.
Gerry Wolstenholme
January 2013
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 3, 2015
Found this by searching for 'airship' on Project Gutenberg, where the full text is available for download. Written in the midst of The Great War, it is a fairly standard example of Invasion Literature, featuring a dashing young aviator and inventor, his girlfriend, and his best mate trying to single-handedly fight off the dastardly German menace nightly loosing bombs over London.
Read
May 6, 2013One year into WW 1, and everything he had warned about seemed likely to pass. German Zeppelins threatened the "green and pleasant" land, while doughty lads bravely fought back the Evil Empire on the continent. Having formed his own amateur spy society, he now realized his foolishness and pressed the Secret Service to provide protection, fearing reprisals from Germans now that their nefarious plots had been exposed. This is not the hero of the book I describe, but its author, William Le Queux.
Books like this one, serialized in the national press, were how he spread his anti-German message, which explains why the book itself consists of long passages of expository rhetoric. Characters are helpfully and continuously signposted as good or bad (essential if you only read one chapter per week), and the plot is unsurprising. The contrived plot device of a plucky girlfriend who has a feminine attack of nerves after being kidnapped (hence refusing to reveal certain plot points to our hero), hasn't dated well.
But the language (e.g. aerodrome, Invisible Hand) and the details (ladies still carry chatelaines, whatever the heck those are) are fantastic. The chapter describing a flight at night is well worth reading, as Le Queux's gift for expository narrative gives detail that a more artistic-minded contemporary author would have overlooked.
It is an exquisite evocation of an era long gone, if it ever truly existed, where brave lads risked it all for King and Country while the girls looked on ever so admiringly, and spies all had odd-featured faces. For what it aspired to be, it is an absolutely authentic example of this now long-forgotten genre.
Books like this one, serialized in the national press, were how he spread his anti-German message, which explains why the book itself consists of long passages of expository rhetoric. Characters are helpfully and continuously signposted as good or bad (essential if you only read one chapter per week), and the plot is unsurprising. The contrived plot device of a plucky girlfriend who has a feminine attack of nerves after being kidnapped (hence refusing to reveal certain plot points to our hero), hasn't dated well.
But the language (e.g. aerodrome, Invisible Hand) and the details (ladies still carry chatelaines, whatever the heck those are) are fantastic. The chapter describing a flight at night is well worth reading, as Le Queux's gift for expository narrative gives detail that a more artistic-minded contemporary author would have overlooked.
It is an exquisite evocation of an era long gone, if it ever truly existed, where brave lads risked it all for King and Country while the girls looked on ever so admiringly, and spies all had odd-featured faces. For what it aspired to be, it is an absolutely authentic example of this now long-forgotten genre.
July 9, 2012
A cracking World War 1 adventure with spies, planes and Zeppelins.
The free Kindle version available on Manybooks is very badly scanned and full of typos.
The free Kindle version available on Manybooks is very badly scanned and full of typos.
January 18, 2020
Very jingoistic, as you would expect from the time it was written. But the writing is very wooden and a diatribe against the newspapers. A reasonable basic plot nonetheless.
May 28, 2019
Very fast pace.
I liked the book. It was an easy read and greaT plot twists. The use of the airship was good.as well.
I liked the book. It was an easy read and greaT plot twists. The use of the airship was good.as well.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews