Product Description

This is a book everyone should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks ... this prince of pilots ... had a charmed life in every sense of the word George Bernard Shaw Sent to France with the Royal Flying Corps at just 17, and later a member of the famous 56 Squadron, Cecil Lewis was an illustrious and passionate fighter pilot of the First World War, described by Bernard Shaw in 1935 as 'a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet'. In this vivid and spirited account the author evocatively sets his love of the skies and flying against his bitter experience of the horrors of war, as we follow his progress from France and the battlefields of the Somme, to his pioneering defence of London against deadly night time raids.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61391 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 344 pages

Review
If you want to read one book which best captures the heroic infancy of flying, then Sagittarius Rising is it. Forget St Exupery, Lindbergh or even Richard Hillary. Cecil Lewis got there before any of them, and in this magical memoir summed up the terrible beauty of flying, and fighting the first air war, waged in the skies above the Western Front. --Nigel Jones, BBC History Magazine

Sagittarius Rising is his stirring, often moving, account of his years with the corps, fighting on the Western Front. The vivid descriptions of dog-fights (including an encounter with the Red Baron) and the exhilaration of flight transcend Boy's Own Paper banality through his poignancy and lyrical depth. --The Times

This is a book everyone should read. It is the autobiography of an ace, and no common ace either. The boy had all the noble tastes and qualities, love of beauty, soaring imagination, a brilliant endowment of good looks . . . this prince of pilots . . . had a charmed life in every sense of the word . . . he is a thinker, a master of words, and a bit of a poet. --George Bernard Shaw

About the Author
Cecil Lewis distinguished himself in action with eight victories throughout WWI and was awarded the MC. After the war he became a flying instructor in China and later achieved fame as one of the founders of the BBC, and as a respected playwright. He died in 1997.

Customer Reviews

Perhaps the best First World War Fighter pilot memoir
Cecil Lewis is above all gifted writer. He gives the reader a rare insight into the life of a young man during the first world war and shortly afterwards.

A "bit of a Poet" he tells us of his experience as he trains to be a pilot and then during active duty.

This memoir lets us see through his eyes what live was like. Perhaps we see it better for he has a keen eye for detail and is both sensitive and perceptive.

The flying and combat scenes are perhaps the best ever written.

Full of passion, youth and poetic love for the sky
This is possibly the best aircraft related war memoir I have ever read. Cecil Lewis is a wordsmith in his own right, he lived to be 98 and became a successful BBC broadcaster. He wrote this book later on in life, but not from an adult perspective only just how he fell at the time as a 17 year old youth joining the Royal Flying Corps. It's full of love for flying, full of passion and knowledge of the machines, full of feelings that will take you on an emotional rollercoaster and make you laugh and cry as you read through this magnificent masterpiece of a memoir.

1st class book
This book amazed me with indepth describtion of the war and shocking images. Written by the magnificent Cecil Lewis !! Who many of you will have heard of. The book is not short of good quality !!! Cecil Lewis , the first air ace of World War one, is a great author and this book encourages me to want to read more and more of his work. But I think he only has the 1 book!!!
If you are interested and amazed by the war then you will love this book but if you find war boring then think again !!!Thuis book makes you want to read on even if you are not completely into the world war 1. It also teaches the reader a lot about the war, so teachers or just keen people must read this book !!! Give it to children to read beacause though it will be a challenge it will teach them a lot about life and the war !!!!

I would defiantly reccommend this book !!!