Other editions of book Sagittarius rising

‘Classic . . . the definitive account of aerial combat – full of passion and poetry’ – Max Arthur, Independent ‘Magical evocation of the lonely battle fought in the clouds’ – The Daily Telegraph ‘This is a book everyone should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks . . . this prince of pilots . . . had a charmed life in every sense of the word’ – George Bernard Shaw Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just seventeen, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of the First World War, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as 'a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet'. In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defense of London against deadly night time raids.

A memoir by a WWI fighter pilot, with the adventurous spirit of War Horse and the charm of The Little PrinceA singular, lyrical book, Sagittarius Rising is at once an exuberant memoir from the Lost Generation and a riveting tale of the early days of flight during World War I. Cecil Lewis lied his way into the British Army’s Royal Flying Corps at age sixteen and was ordered to a squadron on the Western Front only a year later. At the time, flying was so new that designers hadn’t even decided on basic mechanics such as how many wings a plane should have. Despite this, Lewis mastered virtually every kind of single-engine plane in the RFC, going on to excel in active duty and even to dogfight the Red Baron—and live to tell the tale. Full of infectious charm and written with the prose and pacing of a novel, Sagittarius Rising beautifully recounts Lewis’s harrowing exploits in the sky alongside his wild times of partying and chasing girls while on leave in London. His coming-of-age story is unlike any other WWI memoir you’ve read before.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The aircraft were parasols, Sopwith Camels, Moranes; the young warriors who flew them were the world's first aces. They piloted their flimsy planes in dawn patrols across no-man's-land and over enemy trenches, dived headlong--guns stuttering--into deadly Richthofen Circus, and dueled with an adversary as brave as themselves. They fought the first--and last--gallant war in the skies. These memoirs of a combat pilot in England's Royal Flying Corps during WW I are a great classic of military aviation, a chronicle of a lost age of heroes and the birth of a new age of flight. "This prince of pilots has had a charmed life in every sense of the word. He is a thinker, a master of words and a bit of a poet" --George Bernard Shaw

‘Classic . . . the definitive account of aerial combat – full of passion and poetry’ – Max Arthur, Independent ‘Magical evocation of the lonely battle fought in the clouds’ – The Daily Telegraph ‘This is a book everyone should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks . . . this prince of pilots . . . had a charmed life in every sense of the word’ – George Bernard Shaw Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just seventeen, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of the First World War, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as 'a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet'. In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defense of London against deadly night time raids.

Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of World War I, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as "a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet." In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defense of London against deadly nighttime raids.