Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh

by Joyce Milton

Book Overview

Drawing on newly available documents, a dual biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh compellingly recounts the controversy, triumphs, and tragedies of their exciting and loving lives together.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060165030
• ISBN13: 9780060165031
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Length: 520 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

You'll be glad you read this one

This book has everything a reader of non-fiction could possibly want in a biography. It has two interesting subjects; is well researched, fast paced, and well written; and tells such a compelling story with so many twists and turns, plots and sub-plots, that it is extremely hard to put down. Besides that, it is highly informative. Anyone who likes reading biographies will certainly love reading this one, and others will enjoy reading it too. Before reading the book, I had a somewhat negative impression of Charles Lindbergh. About all I knew about him was that he was the first man to fly across the Atlantic, that for some inexplicable reason he was given the Congressional Medal of Honor, that his baby was kidnapped and murdered, that just prior to America's entry into World War II he became an isolationist who was thought by many to be a Nazi sympathizer, and that in his later life he lived in Hawaii. To me, it seemed that everything Lindbergh was and ever became depended on one single act, flying across the Atlantic Ocean, and looking back on it from the vantage point of time that didn't seem like such a big deal. Perhaps that assessment is true to some extent, and Lindbergh, himself, might readily agree. But, based on this book, he was the kind of person you might like to have as a friend and much more than I ever thought he was. Before becoming famous, for example, he was a barn-storming parachutist and pilot and an airmail pilot. Then, after flying the Atlantic, he reluctantly became the most famous man in the world; a moderately wealthy man who cared more about aviation than money; an explorer and pioneer of commercial aviation; and, to some extent, a successful scientist. But, like Greta Garbo, all he and his wife really seemed to want was to be left alone. What makes this book most interesting, however, is the author's account of what has to be "The crime of the Century," the Lindbergh baby's kidnapping. That sorry event, and the subsequent investigations and their aftermath, with all its bizarre and unsavory cast of characters and bewildering twists and turns, makes for riveting reading and contributes greatly to this outstanding book and great read. I must admit, however, that I still can't quite figure out why Charles Lindbergh was so much admired by so many people for so long. Maybe you can figure it out, but even if you can't, you'll be glad you read this one.

Joyce Milton's Walk Into the Lindberghs' Garden of Eden

Joyce Milton focuses on the marriage of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. Because the pivotal event in their lives was the kidnapping of their first-born son, it occupies about half the text.Milton examined FBI files to uncover facts not previously cited in books on the kidnapping. Most striking to students of the case was her discovery of a connection between Duane Baker (real name Duane Bacon) and Charles Henry Ellerson, a chauffeur in the employ of Anne Lindbergh's mother, Elizabeth Morrow, in Englewood, New Jersey. Ellerson had driven Betty Gow, nurse for the Lindbergh child, from Englewood to Hopewell on the day of the kidnapping; this is significant, because the kidnapper (supposedly Bruno Richard Hauptmann) would have had no reason to expect the Lindberghs to be in Hopewell on Tuesday, March 1, 1932. They had never spent a weeknight in the house before, so anyone with knowledge of their whereabouts was a suspect.Milton connects Baker to the first large chunk of ransom money, $2,980 laundered at the Federal Reserve Bank under the name of"J.J. Faulkner," a non-existent person whose invented name matched the initials of a mother and daughter who had previously lived at the apartment house where Baker was superintendent. For his own part, Baker was a career criminal who disappeared with the rent receipts two weeks after the ransom money was exchanged on April 2, 1932, in a Bronx cemetery.Milton believes Hauptmann wrote the ransom notes, however. One comes away from "Loss of Eden" with the belief that Hauptmann was involved in the crime, but was not the actual kidnapper. "Loss of Eden" is a valuable resource for those seeking a better understanding of the case, and of the troubled Lindbergh marriage.