Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight. Paul Hoffman

      PAUL HOFFMAN

      WINGS OF MADNESS

      ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT

      AND THE INVENTION

      OF FLIGHT

       COPYRIGHT

      William Collins

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Copyright © Paul Hoffman 2003

      Paul Hoffman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the

      British Library

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      SOURCE ISBN: 9781841153681

       Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2012 ISBN 9780007441082

       Version: 2016-10-11

       DEDICATION

       For Ann and Alexander and Matt

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue Dinner on the Ceiling Champs-Elysées, 1903

1 Arrival Minas Gerais, 1873

2 “A Most Dangerous Place for a Boy” Paris, 1891

3 First Flight Vaugirard, 1897

4 Dying for Science Paris, 1899

       5 The Turkey Buzzard’s Secret

       6 An Afternoon in the Rothschilds’ Chestnut Tree Paris, 1901

       7 “It Is the Poor Who Will Suffer!” The Eiffel Tower, 1901

       8 “Making Armies a Jest”

       9 An Unwelcome Dip in the Mediterranean Bay of Monaco, 1902

       10 “Airship Is Useless, Says Lord Kelvin” London and New York, 1902

       11 The World’s First Aerial Car Paris, 1903

       12 A Scurrilous Stabbing and a Russian Bribe St. Louis, 1904

       13 “Aeroplane Raised by Small Motor, M. Santos-Dumont Performs a Feat Never Before Attained in Europe” Paris, 1906

       14 “A War of Engineers and Chemists”

       15 “Cavalry of the Clouds”

       16 Departure Guarujá, 1932

       Postmortem In Search of a Heart Campo dos Afonsos, 2000

       What Santos-Dumont Wrote

       What Santos-Dumont Read

       What Santos-Dumont Made

       Notes

       Index

       Origins and Acknowledgments

       About the Author

       Other Books By

       About the Publisher

       [PROLOGUE] DINNER ON THE CEILING CHAMPS-ELYSÉES, 1903

      IN DECEMBER 1903, an eleven-year resident of Paris, the Brazilian aeronautical pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, held a small holiday party in his high-ceilinged apartment on the Champs-Elysées. Louis Cartier, the jeweler, was there, as was Princess Isabel, the daughter of the last emperor of Brazil. The other attendees can only be surmised because there was no printed guest list, but his regular dining partners and confidants included George