Earhart, Amelia. The Fun of It. Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation. New York Brewer, Warren & Putnam 1932
First Edition, third printing, signed by the author on the front blank, "Amelia Earhart". 8vo; 218pp; +"Aviation Books by Women"; brown wove cloth stamped in pale white front and spine. With record by Silvertone from a London broadcast Earhart made May 22, 1932 at back pocket as called for. Frontispiece photograph of the aviatrix and 31 other half-tone illustrations. Dampstaining to top edges of book on front and back panels, extending down about 1", minor rubbing to spine ends; a small bit of foxing to pages where there are half-tones and the adjoining pages. Ex- libris on front pastedown with small sticker noting number. With record by Silvertone from a London broadcast Earhart made May 22, 1932 at back pocket as called for. Frontispiece photograph of the aviatrix and 31 other half-tone illustrations. Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), became the most famous woman aviator of the century and opened up the field for women as pilots and engineers. She took lessons with pioneer woman aviator Neta Snook, making her first solo flight in 1921. The '20's, the era of flying circuses and barnstorming, saw the young flyer becoming a familiar figure "on the dusty runways and in the tin airports of southern California." [NAW]. Fame came when she agreed to fly in the FRIENDSHIP cross Atlantic in 1928; though only a passenger, the press and the public immediately took to this remarkable woman. She lectured on flying; joined COSMOPOLITAN as their aviation editor, flew in the first women's Air Derby in 1929; was the first woman to fly the early prototype of the helicopter and a founding member and president of the Ninety-Nine, an international organization of woman pilots (to whom she dedicated this book). In 1932 she made a solo transatlantic flight, the first woman to accomplish this feat, setting a new speed record. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross. Her death in 1937 while attempting a 27,000 mile trip around the equator continues to provoke controversy and speculation and in some ways obscures her genuine achievements. THE FUN OF IT, Earhart's second book, is characteristic in its informality and modesty and keen appreciation of her fellow women in aviation. NAW I, pp. 538-540. 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN, pp. 255-258.
$US800
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