Captain William Earl Johns completed 96 Biggles books in his lifetime, and was working on a 97th – Biggles Does Some Homework – in 1968, when he died aged 75. A collection entitled Biggles Air Ace: the Uncollected Stories was published in 1999, and a previous collection, Comrades in Arms (1947), had included one Biggles story alongside others featuring Gimlet and Worrals (other Johns creations). Two other books published in the author's lifetime used Biggles's name: The Biggles Book of Heroes (1959) and The Biggles Book of Treasure Hunting (1962).
The last book that Johns completed was Biggles Sees Too Much (published in 1970).
Biggles Does Some Homework was never completed. It was published in 1998 as a strictly limited edition of 300 copies in paperback; a further limited print run of 300 hardback copies was printed in 2007. At the time of writing, four copies (dated 1997 and 1998) were for sale on abebooks.co.uk – at prices ranging from £1,150 to £1,750.
© Haydn Thompson 2023