During Markham 's final years she once again become a well-known personality. West with the Night was republished, becoming a best-seller, and she was the subject of a television documentary. She died in Kenya in 1986 at the age of 84. The real author was her third husband, Raoul Schumacher, who was a writer and journalist. Trzebinski interviewed friends of Markham who said that when the book was published they assumed she had not written it.
Further proof is the book itself.
It contains literary references that only Schumacher could have made and inaccurate descriptions of flying that Markham would not have put in her narrative. Her friends think she may have intended to reveal Schumacher as the actual author, and that might explain why she kept the manuscript. Moreover, she may have been so caught up in the book's success when it was published that she could find no graceful way to say she had not written it. As many people have commented, however, the question of who actually wrote West with the Night may be irrelevant, since the book continues to be a classic account of growing up in Kenya. Women Pioneers in Aviation, Macmillan, 1979.