The Fun of It : Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation
New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1932 [1947]. Later edition. Publisher's sky blue cloth, in dust jacket). 218pp. Minor browning to endpapers, light sunning extremities, overall a near fine copy in very good or better, spine-sunned and lightly edge worn dust jacket, in mylar cover. Item #239072
THE QUEEN OF THE SKIES
Famed aviator Amelia Earhart shares her origin story of how she began to fly in this her second book, The Fun of It. She proofed the pages for this book mere days before she went on the trip that would make her the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic. In a postscript cabled and telephoned from across the globe to her publishers, Earhart details her solo transatlantic flight. True to her reputation for humility and women's rights activism, Earhart also devotes a portion of her book to the profiles of her fellow female flyers. Always the champion for equality in aviation, Earhart was the first president of the Ninety Nines, an organization to help support women in aviation and advance their cause named for the number of charter members. It is to this group that Earhart dedicates her book.
A wonderful later printing [c. 1947] of this aviation classic, notable for a contemporary ownership inscription, supposedly from one pilot to another (signed "Stretcher"), quoting the complete text of "High Flight," the iconic aviator's poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr. Magee himself died tragically in service just four months after penning the piece in 1941––at just 19 years old. This copy represents a poignant link between two generations of pilots.
Price: $375.00