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The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright
 
 
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The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Milton Wright first saw Huffman Prairie from the seat of a farm wagon on a late fall afternoon in the year 1848..." (more)
Key Phrases: montebank game, canard elevator, aeronautical experiments, Kitty Hawk, New York, Orville Wright (more...)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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  Hardcover, May 31, 1989 -- $85.99 $0.54
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Frequently Bought Together

The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright + How We Invented the Airplane: An Illustrated History + The Wright Brothers: A Biography
Price For All Three: $33.17

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  • This item: The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright by Tom D. Crouch

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  • How We Invented the Airplane: An Illustrated History by Orville Wright

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  • The Wright Brothers: A Biography by Fred C. Kelly

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Milton Wright, father of Wilbur and Orville, was an itinerant churchman embroiled in controversies who bequeathed to his sons firmness of purpose, stubborn independence and overweening pride, qualities that were to inform their lives. After the bachelor brothers perfected the world's first practical airplane, their extreme secretiveness and haughty manner alienated potential business partners. Determined to protect their invention, the duo became litigious, undertaking a string of patent-infringement lawsuits that consumed their energies and very possibly contributed to Wilbur's death at age 45 in 1912. Orville, who finally reaped a fortune from the sale of the Wright Company, spent his last years tinkering on small-scale projects. He died in 1948. Crouch ( A Dream of Wings ) interweaves family drama with the history of aviation in a riveting saga of ingenuity, competing claims, public adulation and technical innovation. More than 10 years in the writing, with benefit of cooperation from the Wright family, this comprehensive biography throws light as well on Will and Orv's long-suffering sister Katherine, head of the household (their mother died in 1889), who held the family together while their father crisscrossed the country. The book also contains fresh glimpses of rival pioneers--American, French, German--and their magnificent flying machines. There have been a number of fine biographies of the Wright brothers; this one ranks with the best. Photos. BOMC selection. ( June ).
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Library Journal

This book is both a biography of these great American heroes and a history of early aviation. Crouch discusses the Wrights' early life in Dayton, which was dominated by their father, the controversial Bishop Wright. He provides a detailed account of the development of the airplane, with its problems of aerodynamics, control surfaces, and propellers. The Wrights' business efforts to capitalize on their technology--fraught with struggles for patents, disputes over contracts, and feuds with the Curtiss corporation--is particularly enlightening. A well-researched book which uses often overlooked original source material, this will have wide interest for general readers and those interested in flying history. BOMC selection.
- William A. McIntyre, New Hampshire Vocational-Technical Coll. Lib., Nashua
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 608 pages
  • Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (April 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 039330695X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393306958
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #309,487 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Tom D. Crouch
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Customer Reviews

16 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The Wright Biography!, December 31, 1999
By Douglas McIntyre (Burbank, California USA) - See all my reviews
For anyone really interested in the story of human flight, Tom Crouch's "The Bishop's Boys" is the book for you. Crouch has done a masterful job of telling the Wright's story, and what a story it is! Most legendary figures of history crumble when their lives are examined-- Wilbur and Orivlle Wright are more amazing the more you learn about them. Thanks to Crouch and "The Bishop's Boys", the entire story, warts and all, is finally put before the public in a well written, definitive, biography. I have studied and written about the Wright Brothers for years, and I always tell anyone who wants to learn more about these amazing brothers to read this book.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A stor of an amazing human achievement., June 15, 1998
By A Customer
I've wanted to read Tom Crouch's book, The Bishop's Boys, ever since I visted Kitty Hawk, North Carolina for the first time while on vacation. I found the title intriguing. Even more intriguing was the idea that two parsonage children with little or no formal education beyond high school were responsible for the "world's first power-driven, heavier-than-air machine in which man made free, controlled, and sustained flight."

Mr. Crouch tells the tale in a way that does justice to both the men and the machine. By this I mean that neither overshadows the other. One comes to the end of the book convinced that the fates of both the men and the machine were inextricably intertwined. How this came to be is a story of wonder, some sadness, humor, and amazing human achievement.

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars How was the Airplane "Really" invented?, September 18, 2000
By Olaf O. Storaasli (Norfolk, Virginia) - See all my reviews
In this book, Tom Crouch culminates his exhaustive research on the history of manned flight. All the players (and would-be players) are included from the Wright Brothers viewpoint. Crouch carefully examines the involvement/viewpoints of Chanute, Beloit, Langley, Curtiss and a host of contemporaries from Kings to children with intricate details of the Wright family itself. It sets one back so well in time that one feels you are sitting in the same room with Wilbur, Orville and Milton, their father. One can even sense that Wilbur and Orville might differ on their view of important events (i.e. The Wrights might never have flown if Wilbur had not been knocked cold playing ice hockey near the Soldier's Home).

Milton's religious influence and the Wright family tradition is shown to have played a key role in shaping Wilbur's decision to do something meaningful with his life after giving up a likely education at Yale and career in the ministry in his Dad's footsteps as a result of the hockey accident.

To me the book has a happy and sad part:

The happy part (the first half) deals with Wright family, history, ideas, experiments, inventions and basically seeing how the brothers (particularly Wilbur) came up with all their ideas and diligently and painstakingly pursued them.

The sad part (the last half) deals with the agony felt by Wilbur (before his death) and Orville for the rest of his life fighting a multitude of court cases over what they viewed as clear patent infringements. Orville is viewed as extreme and difficult to get along with (according quotes from to Charles Lindberg).

Only after Orville's death and World War 2 did the Wrights force the Smithsonian to back down and recant many of their publications related Samuel P. Langley, Orville insisted were untrue. Finally, their 1903 "First Flight" aircraft was returned to the Smithsonian from the British Museum where Orville insisted it remain as a protest until the Smithsonian retracted their views. Such stong uncompromising right/wrong views of Orville and Wilbur are traced to the Bishop (father) in trying to uphold conservative values while their church was split do to relaxing traditional values. The Wright family tradition of honesty and integrity is evident from cover to cover.

This is an excellent read, and you'll be anxious to pursue reading numerous other Wright books and artifacts in museums cited at the end.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
This is a fascinating look at the level of perseverence it took for these unlikely entrepreneurs to bring a vision to reality. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jeffrey C. Petherick

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
Here's an outstanding biography that digs deep into the nuances of the Wright brothers' personalities and inventive genius. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Larry Wanamaker

5.0 out of 5 stars Chracter and Invention
This well-researched, well-written book shows how the Wright brothers' intertwined characters made them both wonderfully systematic, analytic, and innovative on the one hand and,... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Arthur C. W. Bethel

2.0 out of 5 stars It does drag on........
The Wright Brothers are distant cousins of mine, so I was looking for a book that would give me the history of their lives. Read more
Published 6 months ago by D. Evans

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bishop's Boys
This is an outstanding historical review. Aside from grammatical and punctuation errors, the book is excellent!
Published 10 months ago by Stephen J. Bogdan

5.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down
An absolutely fascinating story of how two boys from Ohio without college educations, through sheer will, determination and confidence in their own abilities, invented a machine... Read more
Published on September 5, 2007 by T. W. McCort

1.0 out of 5 stars Book Is Very Boring & Talks To Much Of Their Father's Life
This book was a major dissapointment for me. I could not finish the book. The author dwelled more on the problems of the Wright Brother's father, and the chaos he delt with in... Read more
Published on September 29, 2005 by Matthew

3.0 out of 5 stars Very good biography, but who _were_ they?
Very good biography. Details the events of the Wright brothers' lives quite well. I found especially interesting the section on their family lineage and background. Read more
Published on January 10, 2004 by Kenneth Gosier

3.0 out of 5 stars In the end somewhat disappointing
Tom Crouch does a wonderful job in bringing the story of the Wright brothers to life. He explains their social interactions, their different personality types and the family's... Read more
Published on August 4, 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bishop's Boys is FABULOUS
Hi. I've read this book from cover - to - cover so many times that it's actually falling apart. This book is fabulous and I would reccomend it to anyone iterested in flight!
Published on May 20, 2003 by holmesdoggydoggy

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