Aerial Russia; The Romance of the Giant Aeroplane

London: John Lane the Bodley Head, 1916. First U.K. Edition. Octavo. 19.5cm. Publisher's original decorated bottle green cloth titled and decorated in gilt and dark blue to spine and front board. [xiii];154pp. +4pp. ads to rear. Bumping and softening to corners and spine ends, some unpleasing soiling to the rear board that looks like an old oil stain, which at least has the virtue of being appropriate, the cheap wartime gilt on the spine has dulled significantly, but we would imagine that to be almost ubiquitous with this title; internally clean although uniformly toned and browned due to Wartime Economy Standard paper stock; lacking a front flyleaf, (truncated) handwritten inscription in Russian to verso of frontispiece photograph, and a bold authorial inscription to the title page in English: "To my friend A.A. Agafonoff, with best wishes in his future great work in the air, from admirer of his great deeds during present war. Author, 2.viii.19."

The recipient would almost certainly have been Alexander A. Agonoff, an early 20th century Russian fighter pilot, aero engineer and general skyborne jack of all trades, who seems to have to have ended up in Alaska at some point after WW1, probably joining that weird, never repeated, itinerant community of skilled pilots during the 20's and 30's who seem to have ended up as crop-dusters, barnstormers, banner draggers for county fairs, or basically becoming a flying OSHA violation in the service of Hollywood; it was the 1920's equivalent of being a CAA Hump jockey during WW2 then ending up in Laos flying a C-46 with enough holes in it to strain vegetables, nursing cargoes of sweaty C4 and surplus M14's on more hedgehopping jungle flights than either the human brain or Pratt & Whitney was made to deal with.

An analysis of Russian aviation, coverin the evolution of military flying schools, the Imperial All-Russia Aeroclub (one of which, in Hussian, was where Agafonoff learned to fly, and the Imperial Russian Technical Society, in the relaxed style of a man who has already been upside down at high velocity whilst being shot at, and has nothing to prove. It covers the Zeppelin evolution, an array of designers, aviators, and workers, along with notable Russian airmen and the influence of foreign aviators in Russia during the Great War, as well as admiring portraits of aeronaut elite like Sikorsky. Scarce inscribed. (Inventory #: 83615)