- Paperback: 344 pages
- Publisher: Greenhill Books; New edition edition (15 Dec 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1853677183
- ISBN-13: 978-1853677182
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.8 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 580,537 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
If you want to read one book which best captures the heroic infancy of flying, then Sagittarius Rising is it. Forget St Exupery, Lindbergh or even Richard Hillary. Cecil Lewis got there before any of them, and in this magical memoir summed up the terrible beauty of flying, and fighting the first air war, waged in the skies above the Western Front. --Nigel Jones, BBC History Magazine
Sagittarius Rising is his stirring, often moving, account of his years with the corps, fighting on the Western Front. The vivid descriptions of dog-fights (including an encounter with the Red Baron) and the exhilaration of flight transcend Boy's Own Paper banality through his poignancy and lyrical depth. --The Times
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 . . . he is a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet. --George Bernard Shaw
Sagittarius Rising is his stirring, often moving, account of his years with the corps, fighting on the Western Front. The vivid descriptions of dog-fights (including an encounter with the Red Baron) and the exhilaration of flight transcend Boy's Own Paper banality through his poignancy and lyrical depth. --The Times
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 . . . he is a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet. --George Bernard Shaw
Product Description
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 17, 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 defence of London against deadly night time raids.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Cecil Lewis is above all gifted writer. He gives the reader a rare insight into the life of a young man during the first world war and shortly afterwards.
A "bit of a Poet" he tells us of his experience as he trains to be a pilot and then during active duty.
This memoir lets us see through his eyes what live was like. Perhaps we see it better for he has a keen eye for detail and is both sensitive and perceptive.
The flying and combat scenes are perhaps the best ever written.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is possibly the best aircraft related war memoir I have ever read. Cecil Lewis is a wordsmith in his own right, he lived to be 98 and became a successful BBC broadcaster. He wrote this book later on in life, but not from an adult perspective only just how he fell at the time as a 17 year old youth joining the Royal Flying Corps. It's full of love for flying, full of passion and knowledge of the machines, full of feelings that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster and make you laugh and cry as you read through this magnificent masterpiece of a memoir.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There are not many books which give first hand accounts of the air war in the first world war - there were not many who survived. Cecil Lewis was not only a survivor - against the odds - he was also a writer of talent. The backdrop which is provided of youthful exuberance, combined with the sense of duty, helps explain why young men continued to accept and face up to the near certainty of death. This is not just a book about the air war, it is a eulogy to a lost cast.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Sagittarius
What a wonderful book. So well written. My wife recommended that I read this many years ago and I have just got round to it. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Sylvia
First Rate First-hand account of First World War Flying
I bought this because I was reading another book called Fighter Boys which is a well researched account of the development of the RAF leading up to a detailed account of the Battle... Read more
Published 8 months ago by PeetheGee
Sagitarius Rising
Dealing on a daily basis with 20century history hasn't dimmed my enthusiasm for books like this. The First World War has to be one of the turning points in world events given its... Read more
Published 15 months ago by T. A. Britton
A Ripping Yarn!
The Author strikes the right note of humility in the telling of this tale, with wonderful evocative descriptions of his flights in WW1 and afterwards in China. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Paul P White
Sagittarius Rising
An outstanding work of aviation literature, being an account of the life of a Royal Flying Corps pilot in the First World War.
Published 17 months ago by David Leighton
sublimely written memoirs of early flying
unique and outstanding aerial combat memoirs. beauty, humanity and poetry invested in the harshest of wartime experience by a natural writer whose post war career is also of great... Read more
Published 21 months ago by mitchum
Sagittarius Rising
I have not had time to read it yet. However, a friend recommended it and said that everyone should read it, so looking forward to doing so soon.
Published 23 months ago by Jo Jo
Book - Sagittarius Rising. Cecil Lewis
I bought this book to re-read having read it many years ago. It remains one of the best accounts of the Great War from an aviators point of view. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Robin A. Dawes
one of the finest war memoirs, and unique in WW1 aviation
The above superlatives are all appropriate. I want to add that the technicalities are good enough for pilots without baffling laymen, and his description of the extreme difficulty... Read more
Published on 5 Dec 2009 by Richard Budd
not perfect, but well worth a read
A unique book, for sure, and a wonderful insight into the lifestyle of WW1 fighter pilots. But I can't rave about it as the other reviwers seem to have done. Read more
Published on 7 Jun 2009 by Mukisa
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