Spike Milligan Books In Order

Publication Order of According to Spike Milligan Books

Publication Order of The Goon Show Books

Publication Order of War (and Peace) Memoirs Books

Publication Order of William McGonagall Books

Publication Order of The Nation's Favourite Poems Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Chapbooks

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Terence Alan Milligan otherwise known as Spike Milligan was an Irish-English actor, playwright, poet, musician, and writer, best known for the series of comical autobiographical works documenting his experiences as a soldier in the WWII British Army, children’s poetry and the highly popular TV strip, The Goon Show. Born of an English mother and an Irish father, he spent most of childhood in India the country of his birth, before immigrating to the UK later in life. He adopted the nickname of Spike after hearing the Spike Jones and his City Slickers band playing on Radio Luxembourg. He was most famous for being the lead character in The Goon Show, while also being the chief writer and co-creator. His seven-volume war memoir that is an autobiographical account of his experiences in WWII is one of his most popular works. The first work in the series is Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall. A man of many talents Spike Milligan wrote a lot of comical verse most of which was written for children. After attaining much success with The Goon Show, Spike was involved in writing and performing a surreal sketch show known as Q5, which largely influenced the Monty Python Flying Circus. In 1960 and 1961, he applied for British citizenship, but was rejected after refusing to swear allegiance to the United Kingdom, instead opting to take up Irish citizenship.

Spike Milligan got married in 1952 and had three children from the marriage, Sile, Sean, and Laura before getting divorced in 1960. He would get remarried two more times to Patricia Ridgeway and Roberta Watt. Milligan had severe bipolar disorder, which meant that he lived with serious mental depression that sometimes lasted up to a year. However, he candidly spoke of his condition and asserted that he wrote some of his deepest poetry while he was in depression. Spike felt that his service as a soldier in the British Army during World War II entitled him to British citizenship, even as he refused to swear the oath of allegiance to Britain. Nonetheless, he was great friends with the Prince of Wales who was a great fan of his work. Milligan won some of the most prestigious honors for his work, including an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), the Commander of the Order of the British Empire and the 1994 British Comedy Awards Lifetime Achievement Award. He was big on matter environment and argued against unnecessary noise. He also campaigned against domestic violence and animal cruelty. Milligan died in his home in Rye, Sussex in 2002 from Kidney failure aged 83 years old.

Milligan poetical works are best categorized in the genre referred to as literary nonsense. Stephen Fry the comedian asserted that Spike Milligan’s poetry is immortal even comparing it to great works such as Lear. In 1998, the poem Ning Nang Nong was declared the UK’s favorite comic poem after an online poll that had it go head to head with the works of other great nonsense poets such as Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. The poem was so popular that it was adapted into a musical that was performed on the Australian children’s program Playschool for several weeks. In 1969, Spike included the number in his No One’s Gonna Change Our World album, which was to raise funds of the World Wildlife Fund. A 2007 OFSTED report found that the verse is one of the UK’s most taught poems in primary school. As a novelist, he is best known for the comical novel Puckoon, and his War Memoirs series of novels that are an autobiography of his war experiences. The seven-volume work covers his years of service from 1939 to 1950. They tell the narrative of his call up, service in the war, first breakdown, his travels in Italy as an entertainer, and his return to the United Kingdom. The novels are presented in an unusual format expected of such an eccentric character as Milligan. He mixes in performance programs, rough sketches, letter, excerpts from diaries, contemporary photography, and narrative anecdotes accompanied by fake memoranda and comic sketches from top ranking Nazi officials. Nonetheless, he asserted that all the salient facts in the novels were true and that the death of his friends and colleagues would live forever in his mind even if he tried to make light of it. Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall was made into a movie by the same name in 1973.

In his first novel in the War Memoir series, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall documents events happening from the time Britain declares war on Germany to the time the author Spike Milligan arrives in Algeria to liberate North Africa from the Axis forces. Part One documents the young Milligan at home with his family when Chamberlain announces that Britain was going to war with the Germans. Milligan soon receives a letter with the initials O.H.M.S that he does not open. After a series of letter marked urgent makes its way to his house, he opens one to find an invitation to go fight in the war. After the initial setback where he slips a disk in his back, he is on his way to war with the 56th Heavy Regiment where he is immediately identified as a troublemaker. He is disrespectful in speech and calls his commanding officer names in private. Having nothing better to do he spends most of his time setting up musical shows and practicing as a gunner as his regiment is not called up for duty for a year. In 1942, he finally gets on a ship headed for Algeria and smuggles his musical instruments aboard the ship against his commanding officer’s orders. What follows is a series of diary notations about what was allowed with regard to communication about their ammo, guns, and troop number until they dock in Algeria.

The second War Memoir “Rommel?” “Gunner Who?”: A Confrontation in the Desert portrays the events of Spike Milligan’s life in the five months between January and May 1943. This was the time of the invasion of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, otherwise known as Operation Torch. Now ranking as gunner, his first action in war is to swear that he hopes a plane flying above would crash which it instantly does. Now staying in a variety of accommodations and eating army food, Milligan is still as mischievous as ever and sneaks food to an Arab with a struggling family nearby. It was during this time that he meets Harry Secombe, who would later become one of the goons. Milligan is charged with the laying of phone lines and proceeds to make a lot of noise that could attract the enemy, much to the consternation of his commanding officer. With limited time for playing, Spike and his friends take over a bombed out floor and practice during the evenings. They would sing slushy, nostalgic moon June love songs and entertain their regiment until the army took Tunis.