A short life of the author
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (4 February 1902 – 26 August 1974) was an American aviator, author, and public figure who became, on 21 May 1927, the most famous person on earth when he completed the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean — thirty-three and a half hours from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, to Le Bourget Field, Paris, in a single-engine monoplane called the Spirit of St. Louis. The fame that followed was of an intensity that is difficult to imagine in the modern era: Lindbergh was given a ticker-tape parade in New York attended by four million people, received the Medal of Honor, and became, almost overnight, the most celebrated American since George Washington. His subsequent life — the kidnapping and murder of his infant son, his controversial involvement in the America First isolationist movement, his wartime service, and his late-life environmentalism — traced an arc of heroism, tragedy, controversy, and quiet redemption that is one of the great American biographies.
The Flight and We (1927)
Lindbergh was twenty-five years old when he flew the Atlantic. He was a former barnstormer and airmail pilot from Minnesota — lanky, taciturn, and possessed of a mechanical genius and physical courage that were ideally suited to the challenge. The Orteig Prize — $25,000 for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris — had attracted several competitors, some of whom died in the attempt. Lindbergh financed his entry partly through backing from St. Louis businessmen and flew a custom-built Ryan monoplane that carried so much fuel it had no forward windshield.
We (1927) — the title refers to Lindbergh and his airplane — was published within weeks of the flight and became an immediate bestseller. It is a straightforward, modest account of the flight itself and of the preparations that led to it. The “we” was not royal — Lindbergh genuinely regarded the airplane as a partner in the enterprise.
The Spirit of St. Louis (1953)
Lindbergh’s masterwork — written over a period of years with the assistance of the editor Scribners — is one of the great American memoirs. Unlike the hastily produced We, The Spirit of St. Louis is a carefully crafted, deeply reflective account of the flight and of the life that led to it. The book’s structure is ingenious: the narrative alternates between the thirty-three hours of the flight itself (rendered in present tense, with extraordinary sensory detail) and extended flashbacks to Lindbergh’s childhood, his early flying career, and the preparations for the Atlantic crossing.
The flight chapters are superb — Lindbergh describes the hallucinatory exhaustion of flying alone for over thirty hours, the fog, the ice, the fuel calculations, the appearance of the Irish coast, and the final approach to Paris with a physical immediacy that puts the reader in the cockpit. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1954.
The Kidnapping
On 1 March 1932, Lindbergh’s twenty-month-old son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped from the family home in Hopewell, New Jersey. The child was found dead two months later. Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted and executed for the crime, though the case generated enormous controversy and has been re-examined many times. The kidnapping was called “the crime of the century” and subjected the Lindberghs to a media siege that drove them to move to Europe for several years.
America First
Lindbergh’s public reputation suffered severely from his involvement in the America First Committee (1940–1941), the isolationist organisation that opposed American entry into World War II. His Des Moines speech of September 1941 — in which he identified “the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration” as the three groups pushing America toward war — was widely condemned as antisemitic. Lindbergh’s defenders argued that he was an isolationist, not an antisemite; his critics noted that he had accepted a medal from Hermann Göring in 1938 and had expressed admiration for German aviation technology.
After Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh volunteered for military service and flew fifty combat missions in the Pacific as a civilian technical adviser, despite being denied a military commission by Roosevelt.
Later Life and Books
In his later decades, Lindbergh became an environmentalist and conservationist, working to protect endangered species and wilderness areas. His posthumous Autobiography of Values (1978) reflects on technology, nature, and the meaning of his life.
Collecting Lindbergh
We (1927, G.P. Putnam’s Sons) in first edition brings $200–$600. The Spirit of St. Louis (1953, Scribner’s) in first edition with dust jacket brings $100–$300. Signed copies of We are particularly valuable and can reach $1,000+. Lindbergh-related memorabilia — signed photographs, letters, documents — is extensively collected.