The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright - Softcover

Crouch, Tom D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039330695X ISBN 13: 9780393306958

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

Synopsis

The reissue of this definitive biography heralds the one-hundredth anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight.

Brilliant, self-trained engineers, the Wright brothers had a unique blend of native talent, character, and family experience that perfectly suited them to the task of invention but left them ill-prepared to face a world of skeptics, rivals, and officials. Using a treasure trove of Wright family correspondence and diaries, Tom Crouch skillfully weaves the story of the airplane's invention into the drama of a unique and unforgettable family. He shows us exactly how and why these two obscure bachelors from Dayton, Ohio, were able to succeed where so many better-trained, better-financed rivals had failed. 50 b/w photographs

About this title

About the Author:

Tom D. Crouch, author of The Bishop's Boys and A Dream of Wings, is senior curator of the aeronautics division at the National Air & Space Museum. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

From Publishers Weekly:

Milton Wright, father of Wilbur and Orville, was an itinerant churchman embroiled in controversies who bequeathed to his sons firmness of purpose, stubborn independence and overweening pride, qualities that were to inform their lives. After the bachelor brothers perfected the world's first practical airplane, their extreme secretiveness and haughty manner alienated potential business partners. Determined to protect their invention, the duo became litigious, undertaking a string of patent-infringement lawsuits that consumed their energies and very possibly contributed to Wilbur's death at age 45 in 1912. Orville, who finally reaped a fortune from the sale of the Wright Company, spent his last years tinkering on small-scale projects. He died in 1948. Crouch ( A Dream of Wings ) interweaves family drama with the history of aviation in a riveting saga of ingenuity, competing claims, public adulation and technical innovation. More than 10 years in the writing, with benefit of cooperation from the Wright family, this comprehensive biography throws light as well on Will and Orv's long-suffering sister Katherine, head of the household (their mother died in 1889), who held the family together while their father crisscrossed the country. The book also contains fresh glimpses of rival pioneers--American, French, German--and their magnificent flying machines. There have been a number of fine biographies of the Wright brothers; this one ranks with the best. Photos. BOMC selection. ( June ).
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 039330695X
• ISBN 13: 9780393306958
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608