"Of the dozen or so books (mostly wild fantasies) that I have read about Amelia Earhart, Susan Butler's is the only one which re-creates accurately that singular woman whom my father was in love with, as indeed was I, aged ten, when the lady vanished."ùGORE VIDAL<BR><BR>Amelia Earhart (1897 -1937) captured the hearts of America after becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1928. Nine years later, her disappearance on an around-the - world flight brought her extraordinary life to an abrupt and mysterious end.<BR><BR>Based on a decade of archival research through Earhart's letters, journals, and diaries, and drawing on interviews with the aviator's friends and relatives, East to the Dawn provides the most authoritative and richly textured account of both Earhart's record-setting aviation career and her personal life: her early years with her grandparents, her experiences as a nurse and social worker, her famous marriage to publisher George Putnam, and her secret affair with Gene Vidal, head of the Bureau of Air Commerce. As the Los Angeles Times raved, East to the Dawn is "a fully realized portrait of a truly remarkable woman."<BR><BR>"The mountain of new material it marshals guarantees East to the Dawn a permanent place on the shelf of Amelia Earhart references."ùNEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW