The Fledgling

by Charles Bernard Nordhoff

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

210 pages, Hardcover

Published April 6, 2010

About the author

This describes the 20th century novelist, most famous for Mutiny on the Bounty. For the 19th century journalist and author, see Charles Nordhoff.

Charles Bernard Nordhoff was an English-born American novelist and traveler.

Reviews

[KOMET · Rating 5 out of 5]

As we approach the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into the First World War (April 6th, 1917), it is good to read a book like "THE FLEDGLING" whose author (Charles Nordhoff, who would later acquire fame with James Norman Hall, as one of the authors of the novel, "Mutiny on the Bounty", which in turn, was adapted to the screen and became a successful movie in 1935, starring Charles Loughton and Clark Gable) had served as a fighter pilot on the Western Front.

Nordhoff begins his story with a series of letters describing the experiences he had as an ambulance driver at the Front with a French unit from January to June 1917. Then he goes on to provide the reader with some revealing and insightful perspectives on his experiences both as a trainee pilot and later in 1918 as a frontline fighter pilot in the French Aéronautique Militaire.

Originally published in 1919, "THE FLEDGLING" provides the reader with a fresh and sober appraisal of a war that had only been recently concluded. This freshness makes the book worth reading for anyone wanting to better understand an era only recently receded into history.