Aviation in the Literature and Culture of Interwar Britain looks at
the impact of aviation in Britain and beyond through the 1920s and
1930s. This book considers how in this period flying went from a weapon
of war to an extensive industry that included civilian air travel, air
mail delivery, flying shows and campaigns to create 'airmindedness'.
Essays look at these developments through the work of writers,
filmmakers and flyers and examines the airminded modernism that marked
this radical period. Its fourteen chapters include studies of texts by
Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Elizabeth Bowen, W.H. Auden, T.H. White
and John Masefield; accounts of the annual RAF Display at Hendon and the
Schneider Trophy; and the achievements of celebrity flyers such as Amy
Johnson. This collection provides a fresh perspective on the interwar
period by bringing analysis of aviation and airmindedness to the study
of British literature, history, modernism, mobilities and the history of
technology and transportation.