We by Charles A. Lindbergh

Book excerpt: This is the autobiography of the famous flier, Charles A. Lindbergh, written almost immediately after his famous flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927. This historic flight by Charles Lindbergh took him from being a little known US Postal Service Air Mail pilot and made him into one of the most famous if not the most famous person in the world. The main impetus for the flight was the $25,000 Orteig Prize offered by the French-born New York hotelier Raymond Orteig. He offered the prize to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris. The book, which was also soon translated into most major languages, remained at the top of best-seller lists well into 1928, with more than 650,000 copies sold in the first year, and earned Lindbergh more than $250,000. The book's great commercial success was considerably aided by its publication coinciding with the start of his three-month tour of the United States in the Spirit on behalf of the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. The nation became obsessed with Lindbergh during the tour in which he was seen in person by more than 30 million Americans, a quarter of the nation's then population. No other author before or since ever had such an extensive, highly publicized tour that helped promote a book than did Lindbergh's "We" of himself and the Spirit during their 22,350-mile tour of the US. He visited 82 cities in all 48 states during which the nation's nascent aviation superhero delivered 147 speeches and rode 1,290 miles in parades.