Through the Air : A Narrative of Forty Years' Experience as an Aeronaut. Comprising a History of the Various Attempts in the Art of Flying by Artificial Means from the Earliest Period Down to the Present, with an Account of the Author's Most Important Air-Voyages and His Many Thrilling Adventures and Hairbreadth Escapes, Also, An Appendix in Which are Given Full Instructions for the Manufacture and Management of Balloons.
Philadelphia: To-Day Printing and Publishing Company, 1873. Profusely illustrated with sixty-four full-page black-and-white illustrations, color frontispiece, and other in-text illustrations, facsimiles, and charts. First printing thus. Modern butterscotch calf over marbled boards. Octavo. 650pp. 9.25" x 6.5" Light foxing throughout, more so to margins of plates, frontis tissue guard and title page browned and foxed with some sporadic tiding to margins. Overall a very good or better, tight and wide margined copy in fine, simple modern binding. Item #192378
ACCOUNTS OF ASCENTS, EXPLOSIONS, AND THE ANTE-WRIGHTIAN HISTORY OF FLIGHT
John Wise (1808–1879), one of America’s earliest and most influential balloonists, undertook nearly 500 ascents beginning with his first in 1835. Through the Air stands as the most comprehensive nineteenth‑century treatise on ballooning—combining a sweeping history of earlier aeronautic attempts with a vivid, first‑person chronicle of Wise's four decades of ascents, experiments, and innovations. Spanning 650 pages with richly illustrated plates and technical appendices on balloon construction and navigation, this 1873 expanded edition captures the ambition, danger, and scientific curiosity of early flight. It is both a pivotal primary source in the history of aeronautics and a landmark volume marking the transition from balloon spectacle to serious aerial science. Wise’s first-hand accounts read with thrilling detail, recounting not only ascents, but also mishaps and deliberate explosions several miles above terra firma.
Price: $875.00