Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers

by Fred Howard Narrated by Larry McKeever

Overview

The Wrights' longest flight in 1903 covered 852 feet and lasted 59 seconds. In 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles in 38 minutes and the issue was no longer how to fly but how to cash in. Their effort to exploit their invention is a suspense story of the best kind; their voyage into flight and into American history is a gripping tale from takeoff to landing.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

As a former Library of Congress aeronautics editor who worked on the Wright papers, Howard is well qualified to write about the brothers and to redress the rumors, claims and falsifications that followed their successful flights. He establishes early on that the Wrights were not mere tinkerers who owned a Dayton bicycle shop but that they had sufficient background in mathematics and physics to be aware of the theory as well as the practice of flight. Much of the book is devoted to the brothers' efforts to market their invention, which proceeded slowly because they were not businessmen, and the difficulties they had with those who asserted that they, not the Wrights, were the first to fly. Throughout the biography there runs the thread of two loving brothers and the warm family life that helped to sustain them in their struggles. Commendably, Howard describes the technical features of their work in a fashion quite comprehensible to lay readers. A fine job. Photos not seen by PW. History Book Club alternate. (June 5)

Library Journal

In 1903 at Kitty Hawk, a man-carrying machine flew under its own power without losing speed or altitude. Among this book's many merits is making clear just what the Wright brothers really achieved before, during, and after that epic flight. Howard seems well qualified for the task. After Air Force service in World War II he joined the Library of Congress team that edited The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright (1953). His lively account is admirably well documented and more judiciously balanced than most other writings about the men who invented the airplane. For most libraries. B.C. Hacker, General Science Dept., Oregon State Univ. , Corvallis

Booknews

Reprints the 1988 edition (Ballantine Books, Inc.) with corrections of dates and spelling and textual changes based on further research. The author covers the boys' childhood fascination with flight, their experimentation with gliders on the Indiana sand dunes, the first flyer and its runs on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the patent fight and other legal battles that followed, Wilbur's early death, and Orville's later years. Also considered are the contributions of other aviation pioneers such as Octave Chanute, Alberto Santos- Dumont, and Pierpont Langley. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170705160
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	04/17/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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