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CASTLE (Mrs Vernon [Irene Castle])
My Husband.
1st Ed., xii+264pp., 210x144mm, photogravure portrait frontis., 25 photos., several sketches in text (of aerial combats), one page. facsim. of sketches. John Lane, The Bodley Head.
1919
#69288
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/69288.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
A memoir of Vernon William Blythe Castle, an adaptable professional performer - actor, conjuror, dancer - who appeared together with his wife as a famous dancing team (Fred Astaire played the part of Vernon in the film "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle" [released by RKO in 1939] while Ginger Rogers played Irene). Castle was born in 1887 in Norwich, England, the son of a publican, and Ed. locally. He took to the stage, went to New York in 1906 and subsequently perfomed in Paris. He was commissioned in the Royal Flying Corps and became a pilot, serving in France from June 1916-March 1917 with Number 1 Squadron. He and his observer were credited with at least one enemy aircraft downed and he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Surviving a crash, he was then posted to Canada as a flying instructor with 84th Squadron, and from there to Texas where he was killed, when he crashed to avoid a novice pilot whose own life was saved by Castle's self-sacrifice, on 15th February 1918. He was buried in New York City (Woodlawn) Cemetery. Contains a lengthy memoir describing his professional career and a long sequence of his letters from England and France during 1916-17, these including descriptions of photographic work over the Western Front, with several sketches of aerial combats. Orig. blue cloth, gilt to sp., somewhat rubbed, scarce..
£65
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