JF Ptak Science Books: Future of Flight, 1836

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Future of Flight, 1836

JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post

This lovely image of the possibilities of future aerial flight was made by the celebrated caricaturist and illustrator George Cruikshank, and was printed in 1836. The aircraft at top is a massive affair (the selling of the "beautiful Castle in St. Cloud") offered great possibilities along with "no ground rent". It is absolutely a castle int he sky, literally and figuratively, and must've seemed to be something of a possibility to Cruikshank in the fifth decade following the first balloon ascension. Of course he was having a turn at aviation, but I think he also saw the bits of the feasible within his hopeful caricatures.

[Source: E. Seton Valentine, Travels in Space, a History of Aerial Navigation, 1902. Here.]
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