100 Years Ago Today is a great Twitter feed. I highly recommend it. Here's a tweet from them that must have had everyone at the time thinking of Jules Verne's Master of the World.
It is interesting to note that there are 27 ocurrences of the word "disaster" in this book, and almost all of them are in sentences that also include the word "Zeppelin". Like this:
"Although the Zeppelin was accepted as a perfect machine it has never been possible to disperse the atmosphere of disaster with which it has been enveloped from the first. Vessel after vessel has gone up in smoke and flame: few craft of this type have enjoyed more than an evanescent existence; and each successive catastrophe has proved more terrible than its predecessor."
Along these lines, Project Gutenberg has an interesting book, "Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War", from very early in WW 1
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/793/793-h/793-h.htm
It is interesting to note that there are 27 ocurrences of the word "disaster" in this book, and almost all of them are in sentences that also include the word "Zeppelin". Like this:
"Although the Zeppelin was accepted as a perfect machine it has never been possible to disperse the atmosphere of disaster with which it has been enveloped from the first. Vessel after vessel has gone up in smoke and flame: few craft of this type have enjoyed more than an evanescent existence; and each successive catastrophe has proved more terrible than its predecessor."