A new edition of a great, underappreciated classic of our time

Beryl Markham's West with the Night is a true classic, a book that deserves the same acclaim and readership as the work of her contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Isak Dinesen.

If the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix--she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic. Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty.

And then there is the writing. When Hemingway read Markham's book, he wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins: She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer . . . [She] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers . . . It is really a bloody wonderful book.

With a new introduction by Sara Wheeler--one of Markham's few legitimate literary heirs--West with the Night should once again take its place as one of the world's great adventure stories.

2022 Hardcover Reprint of 1942 First Edition. Markham is often described as the first person to fly the Atlantic east to west in a solo non-stop flight, though most now dispute this claim. When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had made the westward flight solo, though several had died trying. Markham hoped to claim both records. On September 4, 1936, she took off from Abingdon, England. After a 20-hour flight she crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In spite of falling short of her goal, Markham had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer. Markham chronicled her many adventures in her memoir, West with the Night, published in 1942. Despite strong reviews in the press, the book sold modestly, and then quickly went out of print. After living for many years in the United States, Markham moved back to Kenya in 1952, becoming for a time the most successful horse trainer in the country.

In West with the Night Beryl Markham chronicles her unconventional, free-spirited girlhood in Kenya and her adventures as a rescue pilot, mail carrier, and bush pilot, scouting game for safaris all over Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The book earned high praise upon its publication in 1942 but fell out of print and into obscurity. When it was republished in 1983 the book became an international bestseller and is now considered both a classic of its genre and a significant literary achievement. National Geographic Adventure ranks it number 8 in a list of 100 best adventure books.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

West With the Night is the 1942 memoir by Beryl Markham, chronicling her experiences growing up in Kenya in the early 1900s, leading to a career as a bush pilot there. The author describes growing up in an Africa that no longer exists, training and breeding race horses, flying mail to Sudan, and being the first woman to fly the Atlantic from east to west.

When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown it non-stop. Markham became the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer. Markham chronicled her many adventures in this memoir. After living for many years in the United States, Markham moved back to Kenya in 1952, becoming for a time the most successful horse trainer in the country.

2010 Reprint of 1942 First Edition. Markham is often described as the first person to fly the Atlantic east to west in a solo non-stop flight, though most now dispute this claim. When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had made the westward flight solo, though several had died trying. Markham hoped to claim both records. On September 4, 1936, she took off from Abingdon, England. After a 20-hour flight she crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In spite of falling short of her goal, Markham had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer. Markham chronicled her many adventures in her memoir, West with the Night, published in 1942. Despite strong reviews in the press, the book sold modestly, and then quickly went out of print. After living for many years in the United States, Markham moved back to Kenya in 1952, becoming for a time the most successful horse trainer in the country.

Markham is often described as the first person to fly the Atlantic east to west in a solo non-stop flight, though most now dispute this claim. When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had made the westward flight solo, though several had died trying. Markham hoped to claim both records. She took off from Abingdon, England. After a 20-hour flight she crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. In spite of falling short of her goal, Markham had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer. Markham chronicled her many adventures in her memoir, West with the Night, published by BN Publishing. After living for many years in the United States, Markham moved back to Kenya, becoming for a time the most successful horse trainer in the country.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.

We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.