1989; St. Martin's Press publishers, New York; hardbound with tan and brown boards; imbossed with author's initials on cover; gilt lettering on spine; very small ding on front cover; very good condition of book; wonderful photographs; dust jacket good condition.
 
Description -
When Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937 during her attempt to fly around the world, she was already known as America's most famous female aviator.  Her sense of daring and determination, rare for women of her time, brought her fame from the day she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane.
 
There's no transport more glamorous than Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B aircraft, now hangared in the Smithsonian, Washington. It looks as if it had been lacquered with scarlet nail varnish; she called it her "red bus". Like its pilot, it balanced stubborn competence, achieved through work (Earhart wasn't a natural flier), and marketable celebrity. Most of the marketing - the books, the lecture tours - was done by her husband, George Putnam, to whom Lovell gives equal space, as seems only fair to their egalitarian relationship. Theirs was a modern marriage between a couple who seem like holdovers from frontier America, and predictors of a future that hasn't quite arrived even now. Earhart was emotionally reticent, and Lovell respects that: no coarse speculations about what she felt when. Lovell also loves early pilots' mix of diligence and irresponsibility, as well as the possibilities inherent in the Lockheed, despite its chicken-coop cockpit proportions; dangerous fun was to be had.