Colonel Cody and the Flying Cathedral: The Adventures of the Cowboy who Conquered Britain's Skies

First edition, first impression.  xii, 274pp, with monochrome illustrations and page decorations throughout.  Cloth-covered boards.  8vo.  There is a tiny mark on the front paste down and some gentle pencil underlining on two pages of the prologue, else volume is neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original glossy and illustrated dust wrapper, crisp and fresh.  Dust wrapper is now protected in a clear film sleeve, fitted without the use of tape or adhesives. Samuel Cody (born Cowdery) was a Wild West showman and a flamboyant early aviation pioneer.  He developed the large kites known as Cody War-Kites,  used by the British before World War I as a smaller alternative to balloons for artillery spotting. In October 1908 he became the first person to pilot  a British-made aircraft.