Although the authorship of the book has come into question (regarding whether Markham wrote it alone or in collaboration with her husband), the major historical matters are immutable.  The author's amazing childhood in British East Africa, her prowess in raising horses there and her later career as a female aviator in the youngest days of the airplane make for a narrative unlike any other.  No less than Ernest Hemingway admitted defeat in comparison with the book, and he rarely gave accolades to living writers.  A large portion of the book concerns her successful try at setting a 1936 world record: first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo, but against the wind, from east to west (Amelia Earhart having set the record the other way).

 

6/11/2008