Into the blue
Subtitle: American writing on aviation and spaceflight
By: edited by Joseph J. Corn
Publisher: Library of America; Library of America, The
Published: 2011
Place of publication: [New York, N.Y.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 684
ISBN-13: 9781598531084
Subjects: Flight in literature; American fiction; Astronautics in literature; Aeronautics in literature
Other titles: American writing on aviation and spaceflight
Description: Into the Blue revisits the remarkable trajectory of Americans in air and space, gathering sixty of the best eyewitness and participant narratives from Benjamin Franklin's letters on the first hot air balloons to Chris Jones's account of being marooned on the International Space Station. Here are those who made flight happen: Orville and Wilbur Wright, self-taught pioneers whose homespun invention stunned the world; World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker, whose memoirs (excerpted here for the first time in unedited form) describe the frightening novelties of aerial combat; and daredevils like Texas barnstormer Slats Rodgers and test pilot Jimmy Collins. Ernest Hemingway offers a vivid dispatch on a 1922 flight over France, and Gertrude Stein muses on the look of America from the air; Charles A. Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart narrate their groundbreaking transatlantic flights; Ralph Ellison reflects on the experience of African American airmen at Tuskegee; William F. Buckley Jr. recounts his mishaps as an amateur pilot; Wernher von Braun envisions a space station of the future, while astronauts John Glenn, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin provide firsthand recollections of the conquest of space. Here too, among many other subjects, are scenes and episodes in the development of commercial aviation, from the hiring of the first stewardesses and the high stress lives of air traffic controllers to the new ubiquity of what Walter Kirn calls "Airworld." A thirty-two-page insert offers photographs, some previously unpublished, of the writers and their crafts. -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [657]-661) and index.
Table of contents: title: On the first balloons / Benjamin Franklin; title: "Carlotte, the lady aeronaut" (Mary H. Myers) from 'Aerial adventures of Carlotta; or, Sky-larking in cloudland'; title: From 'Gleanings in bee culture' / A.I. Root; title: From 'A record-breaking balloon voyage' / Henry Helm Clayton; title: The Wright brothers' aëroplane / Orville and Wilbur Wright; title: Flying, a dream come true! / Ida M. Tarbell; title: Aviator tells new terrors for armies / Glenn L. Martin; title: Notes on war experiences / Eddie Rickenbacker; title: From 'A Yankee ace in the RAF' / Bogart Rogers; title: A Paris-to-Strasburg flight shows living cubist picture / Ernest Hemingway; title: Air circus / Hart Stilwell and Slats Rodgers; title: The day I sprouted wings / J. Herman Banning; title: Transatlantic / Gilbert Seldes; title: From 'The Spirit of St. Louis' / Charles A. Lindbergh; title: From 'Shadows of the sun' / Harry Crosby; title: Eight miles; title: straight up! / Hawthorne C. Gray; title: Across / Amelia Earhart; title: From 'The world from the air' / Waldo Frank; title: From 'Atlantic takeoff' / Ruth Nichols; title: Air stewardess / Francis Vivian Drake; title: Twelve strangers in the night / Elizabeth M. Bisgood; title: Knapsack of salvation / Wolfgang Langewiesche; title: (cont.) From 'Everybody's autobiography' / Gertrude Stein; title: From 'Test pilot' / Jimmy Collins; title: Flying again / Anne Morrow Lindbergh; title: The campers at Kitty Hawk / John Dos Passos; title: From 'Adventure was the compass' / Alma Heflin; title: From 'All the brave promises' / Mary Lee Settle; title: Flying home / Ralph Ellison; title: First mission / Bert Stiles; title: From 'I've had it' / Beirne Lay Jr.; title: From 'Flights of passage' / Samuel Hynes; title: From 'Song of the sky' / Guy Murchie; title: Six freshmen and an ercoupe / William F. Buckley Jr.; title: From 'Fate Is the hunter' / Ernest K. Gann; title: From 'Yeager : an autobiography' / Chuck Yaeger; title: From 'The hunters' / James Salter; title: From 'Crossing the last frontier' / Wernher von Braun; title: From 'Flight into space' / Jonathan Norton Leonard; title: From 'The man who rode the thunder' / William R. Rankin; title: From 'The right stuff' / Tom Wolfe; title: From 'Stranger to the ground' / Richard Bach; title: From 'John Glenn, a memoir' / John Glenn; title: From 'Flight of passage' / Rinker Buck; title: From 'Carrying the fire' / Michael Collins; title: (cont.) From 'Thud Ridge' / Jack Broughton; title: From 'Dispatches' / Michael Herr; title: From 'Failure is not an option' / Gene Kranz; title: From 'Of a fire on the moon' / Norman Mailer; title: From 'Magnificent desolation' / Buzz Aldrin; title: Big sky / Gordon Baxter; title: From 'On extended wings' / Diane Ackerman; title: The iron maiden / Sherman Baldwin; title: Starduster / Laurence Gonzales; title: From 'Something's got to give' / Darcy Frey; title: The turn / William Langewiesche; title: From 'Up in the air' / Walter Kirn; title: From 'The Kabul-ki dance' / Mark Bowden; title: Home / Chris Jones.