Amy Johnson

Ref: 4729

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{detailed description}From the moment she reached Australia on her historic solo flight in 1930, until the mysterious circumstance of her death in 1941, Amy Johnson was seldom out of the world's news, yet her true character remained an enigma.
Three years ago Constance Babington Smith was given all Amy Johnson's private papers and asked to write her biography. She has succeeded not only in recreating the adventure of Amy's great world flights but also, because she has discovered a previously unknown series of letters, in finding out what inspired and sustained her passion for the air.
She grew up in Hull, was sent by her father to Sheffield University and fell in love with a man whose marriage to another woman broke her heart. The first part of the book describes these early years and reveals Amy, in sharp contrast to the legend, as spontaneous, feminine and unspoilt. The second part portrays the storms, disasters and ultimate triumph of her 1930 flight to Australia. Although her first meeting with Jim Mollison, another hero of the age, took place there it was not until several years later, after they had only spent a few hours together, that they decided to marry. The switchback years in the final section of the book include Amy's flight to Japan (where she visited Francis Chichester in hospital after a crash); her dramatic flights to the Cape and America; the gradual disintegration of her marriage; the high social life of London, Paris, New York; the frustration of failing to find serious employment in aviation; and finally her wartime flying.
From contemporary records, the memories of friends, and Amy's private papers and letters, Constance Babington Smith has written a compelling story and a penetrating study of a woman whose death was in keeping with her unconventional life.
{Author / Publisher / Date}by Constance Babington Smith
published by Collins 1967 1st edn. 384pp illustrated, index 16x23
{condition}good in worn d/j.
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