''West with the Night'' is a 1942 memoir by

Beryl Markham Beryl Markham (née Clutterbuck; 26 October 1902 – 3 August 1986) was a Kenyan aviator born in England (one of the first bush pilots), adventurer, racehorse trainer and author. She was the first person to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlant ...

, chronicling her experiences growing up in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi ...

(then

British East Africa East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was an area in the African Great Lakes occupying roughly the same terrain as present-day Kenya from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Controlled by Bri ...

) in the early 1900s, leading to celebrated careers as a racehorse trainer and

bush pilot Bush flying refers to aircraft operations carried out in the bush. Bush flying involves operations in rough terrain where there are often no prepared landing strips or runways, frequently necessitating that bush planes be equipped with abnormally ...

there. It is considered a classic of

outdoor literature Outdoor literature is a literature genre about or involving the outdoors. Outdoor literature encompasses several different subgenres including exploration literature, adventure literature, mountain literature and nature writing. Another subgenre ...

and was included in the United States'

Armed Services Editions Armed Services Editions (ASEs) were small paperback books of fiction and nonfiction that were distributed in the American military during World War II. From 1943 to 1947, some 122 million copies of more than 1,300 ASE titles were distributed to ...

shortly after its publication. In 2004, ''

National Geographic Adventure Nat Geo People was an international pay television channel owned by National Geographic Partners, a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (73%) and the National Geographic Society (27%). Targeted at female audiences, with programming fo ...

'' ranked it number 8 in its list of the 100 best adventure books.

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

was deeply impressed with Markham's writing, saying Markham was the first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west in a non-stop solo flight (a westbound flight requires more endurance, fuel, and time than the eastward journey, because the craft must travel against the prevailing Atlantic winds). When Markham decided to take on the Atlantic crossing, no pilot had yet flown non-stop from Europe to New York, and no woman had completed the westward flight solo, though several had died trying. Markham hoped to claim both records. On 4 September 1936, she took off from

Abingdon, England Abingdon-on-Thames ( ), commonly known as Abingdon, is a historic market town and civil parish in the ceremonial county of Oxfordshire, England, on the River Thames. Historically the county town of Berkshire, since 1974 Abingdon has been ad ...

. After a 20-hour flight, her

Percival Vega Gull The Percival Vega Gull was a 1930s British, four-seater touring aircraft built by Percival Aircraft Limited. It was a single-engine, low-wing (Folding), wood-and-fabric monoplane with a fixed tailwheel undercarriage. Design and development ...

, ''The Messenger'', suffered fuel starvation due to icing of the fuel tank vents, and she crash-landed at Baleine Cove on Cape Breton Island,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, Canada. She thereby became the first woman to cross the Atlantic east-to-west solo, and the first person to make it from England to North America non-stop from east to west. She was celebrated as an aviation pioneer.Lovell, Mary S. ''Straight on Till Morning: The Biography of Beryl Markham'' New York: St Martins Press, 1987. {{ISBN, 0-312-01096-6 p. 175

Notes

1942 non-fiction books Autobiographies Aviation books Houghton Mifflin books Kenyan books