West with the Night: A Memoir

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-Exup ry, 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.

Author: Beryl Markham
Publisher: North Point Press
Published: 01/22/2013
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.6lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.40w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780865477636

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 7.3
Point Value: 15
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 10148 / West with the Night

About the Author

Beryl Markham (1902-1986) was a British-born Kenyan aviatrix, adventurer, and racehorse trainer.

Sara Wheeler is the author of, most recently, The Magnetic North and Access All Areas.