MILLER'S EXTENSIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC TRIBUTE TO AVIATION, SIGNED BY EIGHT PIONEERS OF MANNED FLIGHT—A RARE COPY INCLUDING AMELIA EARHART'S SIGNATURE

MILLER, Francis Trevelyan. The World in the Air: The Story of Flying in Pictures. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1930. Two volumes. Tall quarto, original three-quarter white parchment, black paper spine labels, Japanese paper boards and endpapers, uncut. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

Autograph limited first edition, number 40 of only 500 copies, signed by Miller and eight pioneers of aviation from France, the United States, Great Britain and Germany—Farman, Bleriot, Curtiss, Brown, Scott, Eckener, Dornier, and Earhart (rarely found)—illustrated with over 1200 photogravures of historic images selected by Francis Trevelyan Miller.

Magnificent photographic tribute to the pioneers of flight and the history of aeronautical development, illustrated with over 1200 rich brown-tone photogravures of historical events, key innovators, and early inventions. Following upon his successful photographic documentation of the Civil War, historian Francis Trevelyan Miller began writing collectors, photographers, government agencies and historical societies, asking for images that illustrate the history of aeronautics. These requests led to this comprehensive collection of official prints and photographs from government archives and private collections, together with Miller's historical text. This copy of the special autograph first edition contains the signatures of Henri Farman, who made the first flight to measure over one kilometer; Louis Bleriot, who flew the first airplane across the English Channel; Glenn Curtiss, who designed the first aircraft to take off and land on the deck of a ship at sea; Arthur Whitten Brown, co-commander of the first nonstop airplane flight across the Atlantic; G. Herbert Scott, commander of the first trans-Atlantic voyage in an airship; Hugo Eckener, pilot of the Graf Zeppelin, the first airship to fly around the world; and Claude Dornier, designer and builder of some of the world's earliest all-metal aircraft. This rare copy also includes the signature of Amelia Earhart, the first woman aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic, recipient of the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, and subject of one of the world's longest missing person mysteries following her airplane's disappearance over the Pacific. Also signed by the author and the publisher. Issued simultaneously with a trade edition.

Interior fine, very light wear to boards, mild toning to spines. A near-fine copy, most rare signed by Amelia Earhart.