The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright
About this ebook
Why did these two brothers, mechanics by trade, succeed where trained scientists—working with unlimited funds and the backing of great institutions—had repeatedly failed?
In this biography, authorized by Orville Wright and first published in 1943, Fred Kelly separates fact from legend and recreates the dramatic achievements of two men, self-taught inventors, who solved the “impossible” problem of flight.
The Wright Brothers is a story of total adventure—the sharp physical adventure of flight in perilously frail machines, and the breathtaking intellectual adventure of minds discovering through tireless research and sudden, brilliant hunches the solution to the “impossible” problem of flight.
Fred Kelly is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Wright brothers—their growth, their struggles, their disappointments and their ultimate triumph. For more than thirty years he was a personal friend of Orville Wright and talked with him daily while writing this book. The result is a vivid recreation of the birth and pioneer days of aviation and an intimate, affectionate portrait of two men whose inventive genius changed the world.
“A gripping book on a fascinating subject...”—Boston Globe
About the author
Fred Charters Kelly (1882-1959) was an American humorist, newspaperman, columnist and author.
Kelly was born in 1882 in Xenia, Ohio and studied at the University of Michigan (1900-1902). He began his newspaper career in 1896 as a local correspondent for a small town newspaper and wrote a humor column for The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) for five years. His “Statesmen, Real and Near” column (1910-1918) was the first Washington, D.C. news column to be syndicated. During World War I, Kelly served briefly as special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
After the war Kelly bought and operated a farm in Peninsula, Ohio where he continued to support himself as a freelance writer. In addition to his journalistic work, he was the official biographer of the Wright brothers, and worked to bring the original 1903 Wright Flyer home to the U.S. from the Science Museum in London, to which Orville Wright lent it during his long feud with the Smithsonian Institution over credit for the first flight.
His works include Human Nature in Business (1920), How to Lose Your Money Prudently (1933), The Wright Brothers (1943), and George Ade - Warm Hearted Satirist (1947).
Kelly was a member of the National Press Club, Overseas Writers Club, and the Players Club. He had a son, Fred C. Kelly Jr., with his first wife; with his second wife, Marcelle van den Heuvel, whom he married in 1938, he had two children, Brian and Jeanne.
Kelly died in 1959.
