Beryl Markham

First Flight

I've realized many of my heroes are found through reading. Beryl Markham (1902 – 1986) chronicled her many adventures in her BRILLIANT memoir, West with the Night, published in 1942. I made a Glass Cathedral of her book as part of another project "The Traveling Bookbox Show". I wish I had more pictures of it but here are a few.

She was an aviatrix, author, adventurer, and the first PERSON to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. In 1936, she took off from Abingdon, UK and crash landed (successfully!) 20 hours later in Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Novia Scotia, Canada.



Her life was very vey far removed from my ACTUAL aspirations, talents or disposition, and her era was rife with colonial suffering. But I still am entranced by dirty, risky, adventurous lives set against a world of glamor and intrigue (preferably backlit by an African sunrise).