Mes vols

Published a few months after Mermoz’s disappearance over the South Atlantic (7 December 1936, aboard the Laté 300 Croix-du-Sud), and a year before Kessel’s biography, this posthumous volume brings together his previously unpublished texts, articles and lectures. The collection remains his only direct testimony in book form, apart from the texts of two lectures given in Paris (at the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs on 22 November 1934 and at the Petit Palais in October 1935), published separately as Au-dessus de la Cordillère des Andes and Mes traversées de l’Atlantique Sud.

These accounts record the decisive milestones of the Aéropostale, notably that of 12 May 1930, which inaugurated the first regular airmail service across the South Atlantic. The arrangement of the various narratives, together with the extensive tribute section, places the figure of the pilot in perspective; he is honored by texts written by René Chambe, Didier Daurat, Henri Guillaumet, Joseph Kessel, François Mauriac, Jacques Zimmermann and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who celebrates Mermoz as the “harvester” of the air routes.

A key book of 1930s aviation literature, difficult to find in the deluxe issue.

A good copy with generous margins; marginal restorations to the wrappers and spine.