The Aeronauts A History of Ballooning 1783 - 1903 by Rolt. L.T.C.,

Hard back book with colour pictorial dust jacket, 267 pages, 11 chapters illustrated with B/W plates , appendices, bibliography, index. 

This book is a complete history of balloons and of the intrepid men who flew in them. Intrepid is the word because to make an ascent in a balloon in the 18th or early 19th centuries was the equivalent in braving the unknown of today's voyages in space. Such was man's urge to get off the earth and explore the regions of the upper air that the balloon was the natural forerunner of the space vehicle. Here is the serio-comic story of man's first aerial conquests; of the first manned ascents; of the first flights across the English and Irish Channels; of the first high-altitude ascents; of ambitious voyages planned in giant balloons culminating in Andrée's ill-fated Polar expedition; of the first use of balloons in war and of the first navigable balloons, steam, electric and petrol-engined. Like all stories of high endeavour, it is heroic, sometimes tragic, and often hilariously funny.