Beryl Markham
1902-1986
Other Works
The Splendid Outcast: Beryl Markham's African Stories
Writing from Experience Beryl Markham's description of the lion attack that Temas endures did not come solely from her imagination. As a child living in Africa, Markham herself was attacked by a friend's supposedly tame lion. Writing later about that frightening experience, she noted four unforgettable aspects: her own scream, the blow that knocked her to the ground, the feeling of the lion's teeth as they closed on her leg, and—more than anything—the terrifying sound of the lion's roar.
African Childhood Markham's survival of the lion attack is recounted in her autobiography, West with the Night, published in 1942. Although born in England, Markham moved with her father to British East Africa (now Kenya) when she was four. She grew up with native children and watched her father turn a wilderness area into a working farm.
A Life of Adventure In the early 1930s Markham worked as a pilot, flying mail, passengers, and supplies to remote African areas. In 1936 she was the first person to fly across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west. She took off from England and landed in Canada, a feat that rivaled the west-to-east Atlantic crossings of Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. World War II took public attention away from from Markham's daring and adventurous life, and she and her book were largely forgotten by the war's end. In 1948 she returned to Africa and began raising and training racehorses.
Renewed Popularity Three years before her death in 1986, however, West with the Night was reprinted and soon discovered by a new generation of readers. The renewed interest in her extraordinary life gave rise to new biographies of Markham in the 1990s.
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