Last Flight.
Earhart, In Her Own Words
Earhart, Amelia. Last Flight. London: George G. Harrap & Co., 1938.
8vo.; full-page glossy photograph of Earhart posing in front of her flight map as frontispiece; over twenty full-page glossy photographs throughout; pages fresh and bright; endpapers printed with flight map design; light blue cloth, covers and spine stamped in darker blue; tips a bit bumped, top of spine wrinkled but intact; a handsome copy; dust-jacket, tattered but intact—the front decorated with a poignant picture of Earhart looking skyward, the rear printing a facsimile note in her hand.
First edition of Earhart’s autobiography, which she wrote but did not live to see published. An uncommon book even in reprint; first edition copies in such fine condition are quite scarce. Earhart began to write her life story in late 1935; she had completed nearly the entire manuscript (which begins with a chapter entitled “A Pilot Grows Up”) by the spring of 1937, when she embarked on what was to be her first round-the-world flight. Amazingly, Earhart continued to work on the book during the “spare moments” of that journey, keeping a pilot’s log and diary which are included in this volume: “By cable, telephone, and letter she sent back her narrative at each landing place, including three diaries scribbled in pencil and the log-books she kept in the cockpit” (from the dust-jacket). The last pages of the autobiography reprint Earhart’s pilot’s diary for July 1, 1937. On July 2 her plane vanished over the mid-Pacific, never to be seen again. Earhart’s husband, George Palmer Putnam, assembled her writings for this posthumously released autobiography; because of the tragic circumstances the intended title, World Flight, was changed to the more ominous Last Flight.
In addition to its riveting text, Last Flight contains over twenty photographs of Earhart posing with her plane and with other female flyers. The book ends with a facsimile reproduction of a letter from Earhart to Putnam’s in which she encapsulates the role of female pioneers: “Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards of the trip. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others.”
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