First to Fly: The Unlikely Triumph of Wilbur and Orville Wright - Hardcover

'Tobin's extraordinary book puts [the Wright brothers] into humane perspective' -- Brian Morton, Sunday Herald 20030518 'James Tobin's entertaining, well-researched book is a salutary reminder of that fact that a timely spurt can rouse us from our aeronautical complacency' -- William Boyd, TLS 20030529 'The story is compelling in itself, yet this book is larger than that story alone. It explores man's dreams, and what is required to transform a dream into reality. And it is a book that teaches us about heroism, not the kind that comes from a surge of adrenaline but the heroism that determines how one lives.' John Barry 20030529 'How two homespun Midwestern tinkerers prevailed ... in the race to achieve the miracle of flight is a tale as thrilling as it is inspirational. An utterly engrossing read.' David M. Kennedy, winner of the Pulitzer Prize 20030529 'A yeasty, richly drawn evocation of an era -- the dawn of air travel -- and of the strange, visionary, obsessed and difficult men who battled one another to claim this era in their name.' Ron Powers 20030529 'In every way a thrilling story' Justin Kaplan, winner of the Pulitzer Prize 20030529 'Extraordinarily well-written and deeply nuanced work is the best of the recent spate of books celebrating the Wright Brothers' -- Publishers Weekly 20030217 'This fascinating book... contrasts the establishment Goliath, doomed to magnificent failure, versus the small-town Davids of Dayton, Ohio.' -- Lucasta Miller, Telegraph 20030503 'James Tobin gives an exhaustive and exhausting account of the two brothers and the saga of man's first flight.' -- Gay Byrne, Irish Independent 20030601 'Twice Pulitzer prize-nominated Tobin recreates a magical time when the idea of flight was too tantalising to abandon' -- Good Book Guide 20030601 'Easy-reading, story-telling format ... an author who has clearly researched extensively into the subject ... thoroughly engrossing book' -- Western Daily Press 20031227 'The brothers were a pair of Midwestern visionaries, whose story ... illustrates the American Dream. Their efforts and achievements seem to belong to a lost era of entrepreneurial innocence' -- London Review of Books 20040205 'Easy-reading, story-telling format ... thoroughly engrossing book' -- Western Daily Press 20031227

Intense, brilliant and determined, Wilbur and his brother Orville seized the challenge to become the first to fly, despite facing keen competition from far more prominent men who were equally driven to make history. First came Samuel Langley, head of the Smithsonian Institution, the odds-on favourite to fly first. Under intense public scrutiny, his ponderous aerodrome dropped into the icy Potomac River like a handful of mortar just nine days before the Wrights' unheralded first flight at Kitty Hawk. Yet the Wrights were so obscure they were all but ignored. So for six years they fought for recognition - flying a full circle before the disbelieving French, competing against Alexander Graham Bell, and finally against the motorcyclist Glenn Curtiss, fastest man in the world. In the final showdown with Curtiss in 1909, Wilbur Wright circled Manhattan above a million ecstatic spectators. The brothers' place in history was assured. Using his research in the rich archives of aviation, James Tobin pulls readers back to a time when flight seemed simultaneously crazy and tantalizing, drawing them along the Wrights' twisting path of trial, error and breakthrough. No one, Orville later remarked to Charles Lindbergh, quite understands the spirit of those times.