Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh [Hardcover]

Joyce Milton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1993

Drawing on newly available documents, a dual biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh compellingly recounts the controversy, triumphs, and tragedies of their exciting and loving lives together. Reprint. National ad/promo.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This extraordinary dual biography reveals almost as much about American society as it does about the celebrated, often controversial careers of Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1906). Milton ( The Yellow Kids ) examines the events and circumstances that brought the couple fame: Charles's unprecedented nonstop solo airplane flight across the Atlantic in 1927; Anne's social prominence; the kidnapping and murder of their son in 1932; their notorious role in the isolationist movement during WW II; their literary achievements; Charles's naive respect for Hitler. At the same time, Milton's superb research yields exceptionally evocative period details (for example, she suggests the delirium surrounding Lindbergh's Atlantic crossing by reporting that after the crowds departed, more than a ton of personal belongings was collected on the Paris airfield where he had landed). Among her most penetrating discussions are a convincing argument about the likely accomplices of kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann and an analysis of the relation between the Lindberghs' psychological makeup and their problematic politics. Better reasoned and more thorough than Dorothy Herrmann's recent Anne Morrow Lindbergh , Milton's authoritative and engrossing volume reshapes popular notions about its legendary subjects. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC, History Book Club and Reader's Digest Condensed Book selections.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 520 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (January 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060165030
• ISBN-13: 978-0060165031
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,729,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( L ) > Lindbergh, Charles

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Joyce Milton's Walk Into the Lindberghs' Garden of Eden, November 4, 2003

By 

robert lockwood mills (monroe, connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Paperback)

Joyce Milton focuses on the marriage of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Because the pivotal event in their lives was the kidnapping of their first-born son, it occupies about half the text.

Milton examined FBI files to uncover facts not previously cited in books on the kidnapping. Most striking to students of the case was her discovery of a connection between Duane Baker (real name Duane Bacon) and Charles Henry Ellerson, a chauffeur in the employ of Anne Lindbergh's mother, Elizabeth Morrow, in Englewood, New Jersey. Ellerson had driven Betty Gow, nurse for the Lindbergh child, from Englewood to Hopewell on the day of the kidnapping; this is significant, because the kidnapper (supposedly Bruno Richard Hauptmann) would have had no reason to expect the Lindberghs to be in Hopewell on Tuesday, March 1, 1932. They had never spent a weeknight in the house before, so anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts was a suspect.

Milton connects Baker to the first large chunk of ransom money, $2,980 laundered at the Federal Reserve Bank under the name of
"J.J. Faulkner," a non-existent person whose invented name matched the initials of a mother and daughter who had previously lived at the apartment house where Baker was superintendent. For his own part, Baker was a career criminal who disappeared with the rent receipts two weeks after the ransom money was exchanged on April 2, 1932, in a Bronx cemetery.

Milton believes Hauptmann wrote the ransom notes, however. One comes away from "Loss of Eden" with the belief that Hauptmann was involved in the crime, but was not the actual kidnapper. "Loss of Eden" is a valuable resource for those seeking a better understanding of the case, and of the troubled Lindbergh marriage.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You'll be glad you read this one, May 28, 2009

By 

Marvin D. Pipher (Houston, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Hardcover)

This book has everything a reader of non-fiction could possibly want in a biography. It has two interesting subjects; is well researched, fast paced, and well written; and tells such a compelling story with so many twists and turns, plots and sub-plots, that it is extremely hard to put down. Besides that, it is highly informative. Anyone who likes reading biographies will certainly love reading this one, and others will enjoy reading it too.

Before reading the book, I had a somewhat negative impression of Charles Lindbergh. About all I knew about him was that he was the first man to fly across the Atlantic, that for some inexplicable reason he was given the Congressional Medal of Honor, that his baby was kidnapped and murdered, that just prior to America's entry into World War II he became an isolationist who was thought by many to be a Nazi sympathizer, and that in his later life he lived in Hawaii. To me, it seemed that everything Lindbergh was and ever became depended on one single act, flying across the Atlantic Ocean, and looking back on it from the vantage point of time that didn't seem like such a big deal.

Perhaps that assessment is true to some extent, and Lindbergh, himself, might readily agree. But, based on this book, he was the kind of person you might like to have as a friend and much more than I ever thought he was. Before becoming famous, for example, he was a barn-storming parachutist and pilot and an airmail pilot. Then, after flying the Atlantic, he reluctantly became the most famous man in the world; a moderately wealthy man who cared more about aviation than money; an explorer and pioneer of commercial aviation; and, to some extent, a successful scientist. But, like Greta Garbo, all he and his wife really seemed to want was to be left alone.

What makes this book most interesting, however, is the author's account of what has to be "The crime of the Century," the Lindbergh baby's kidnapping. That sorry event, and the subsequent investigations and their aftermath, with all its bizarre and unsavory cast of characters and bewildering twists and turns, makes for riveting reading and contributes greatly to this outstanding book and great read.

I must admit, however, that I still can't quite figure out why Charles Lindbergh was so much admired by so many people for so long. Maybe you can figure it out, but even if you can't, you'll be glad you read this one.

4.0 out of 5 stars These Two Needed a Joint Biography, November 16, 2009

By 

Barbara Badham "book woman" (petaluma, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh (Paperback)

The 45-year marriage of two amazing people makes a wonderful subject for this biography. When I picked it up, I only knew "Lucky Lindy" (he hated the name) to be the flying ace who was the first to cross the Atlantic (NY to Paris) in 1927. I didn't know of his barnstorming days before or the incredible adulation that followed him after that flight, nor the thought and hardship that went into it. Nor did I realize that later he became the most reviled man in America around the time of WWII, when he was perceived as a Nazi sympathizer and an American isolationist who proclaimed the America First position in racist terms. The passage of time always gives us a filter to reconsider what went before, and Lindbergh emerges magnified as a hero, aeronautics pioneer, and scientist while he falls terribly short as husband, father, and citizen of the world. I knew Anne only as the author of her landmark book in 1955, Gift from the Sea, but she emerges in this portrayal as a woman of thought and substance. She seemed to have a very caring heart, and as a female reader I had sympathy for the relative aridity of her marriage. I did not realize that she was the mother of six children or that she was a pioneer aviatrix. Nor did I know that she had a three-year affair with her personal physician. [Wikipedia will tell you that Charles also had affairs, bearing children abroad.]

But almost everyone knows of the 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, in which Charles, Jr. (aged 20 months) was abducted from his home in New Jersey and murdered while ransom demands flew back and forth. This "crime of the century" makes for a large part of the book. One concludes that Bruno Hauptmann was indeed guilty, but it does not rule out the possibility that he may have had co-conspirators. The author deftly weaves this family tragedy into our subsequent understanding of how Charles and Anne stayed together despite an emotional void between them, but one wishes they could have had a happier ending.