Amy Johnson

Amy Johnson died in mysterious circumstances 80 years ago, crashing into the sea off Herne Bay. She had become a household name after her solo flight to Australia in 1930 which thrust her, ill-prepared and exhausted, into the limelight and almost constant media attention for the rest of her short life. Lauded at the time as ‘Amy, wonderful Amy’, her achievements have captivated us ever since. Constance Babington Smith was given access to all of Amy Johnson’s private papers by the Johnson family and asked to write a posthumous account of the life of this most enigmatic heroine. Babington Smith’s definitive biography unravels Amy Johnson’s extraordinary and unconventional life; recreating the drama and excitement of her trailblazing long-distance flights. But she also explores and lays bare the complicated and often unhappy private life that lay behind the strikingly familiar public image. The book is a compelling and often surprising portrait of Amy Johnson’s life and this new Daredevil Books edition includes a rich selection of photographs that convey the many twists and turns of her fascinating life.
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nThe biggest problem facing any biographer of Amy Johnson is that Constance Babington Smith got there first. Her seminal life, written in 1966, told most of what there is to tell about Amy in elegant prose. 
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n– The Sunday Times
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nMany books have been written about Britain’s pioneer woman pilot – the young Yorkshire secretary whose solo flight to Australia in 1930 made her an enduring aviation folk hero. But this splendid biography, published in 1967, remains quite the best of them all. 
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n– The Guardian
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nConstance Babington Smith’s biography of Amy Johnson is a wonderful book about a wonderful woman. 
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n– Tracey Curtis-Taylor