"Katharine Wright embodied the worldly, independent, and self-fulfilled New Woman of the early twentieth century, yet she remained in many ways a Victorian. Torn between duty and love, she agonized for months before making a devastating break with her world-famous and intensely possessive older brother Orville to marry newspaper editor Harry Haskell, the man she loved. Written by the grandson of Harry Haskell, Maiden Flight is imaginatively reconstructed from personal letters, newspaper reports, and other documents of the period--in particular, Katharine's lively and extraordinarily revealing love letters to Harry. Above all, the book celebrates Katharine's abundant store of what she called "human nature"--Her lively and perceptive outlook on life, her great capacity for both love and indignation, and her acute and sometimes crippling self-awareness"--

Torn between duty and love, Katharine Wright agonized for months before making a devastating break with her world-famous and intensely possessive older brother Orville to marry newspaper editor Harry Haskell, the man she loved. In a novel imaginatively reconstructed from Katharine's own love letters to Harry, the reader discovers the central role she played Wilbur and Orville's lives while living in their shadow, as well as on her often misunderstood contribution to their scientific work.