About the book:
This book is a succinct write-up about The Wright brothers who were American aviation pioneers celebrated for inventing, building, and successfully flying the world’s first engine-powered, heavier-than-air airplane. On December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, they achieved the first controlled, sustained flight in history.
The book brings to life their wonderful contraptions as they blazed the path to a flying machine. In the quest for flight, aeronautical societies were formed and broke apart, successes were celebrated, hopes rose and fell, and lessons were learned and built upon.
The author, Tom D. Crouch, is an aeronautics historian and curator. Crouch is the author books and many articles, primarily on topics related to the history of flight technology.
About the binding:
- A full leather miniature stub-binding bound in blue leather.
- Case binding with a false round spine and internal brass boards.
- The stubs are folded from green, blue and yellow Satogami paper.
- The covers of the book have intricate embroidered detail sewn in white thread.
- Edge-to-edge paper doublures, patterned with pen and black and grey threads and carbon tooling.
- Hand-patterned endpapers using blue ink and a roller.
- Leather covered made endbands with additional thread detail.
- The book is housed in a tulipwood box, with a small red flag that acts as a catch to hold the box closed.
Design Description:
This miniature book contains the story of the talented American engineers and adventurers, the Wright Brothers, who laboured to conquer gravity in a flying machine. The cover of the book is decorated with the blueprint of their biplane, designed for control, featuring a 40-foot wingspan, spruce wood frame, and wing-warping for roll control.
The doublures depict the map where the successful flight took place at Kill Devil Hills, North Caroline, about 4 miles south of Kitty Hawk on December 17th, 1903. The site offered steady winds and soft sand dunes suitable for testing and is now preserved as the Wright Brothers National Memorial.
The box is held closed with a small red flag to symbolise the red flag that the Wright Brothers hoisted at their camp to signal men from the nearby U.S. Lifesaving Station, asking for help getting their airplane into position for its historic first flight.
A blog post about how this binding was made will be following soon!