One reason I loved Beryl Markham’s book West With the Night[1] was her passionate treatment of animals. In chapter 9, she puts us all in our place with this neat passage told from the perfect point of view—an animal looking down, or up, on us humans.

“To an eagle or to an owl or to a rabbit, man must seem a masterful and yet a forlorn animal; he has but two friends. In his almost universal unpopularity he points out, with pride, that these two are the dog and the horse. He believes, with an innocence peculiar to himself, that they are equally proud of this alleged confraternity. He says, ‘Look at my two noble friends—they are dumb, but they are loyal.’ I have for years suspected that they are only tolerant.”

Beryl Markham was a pioneering aviator. She also dominated the customarily male dominated ranks of race horse trainers in Kenya. Yet, hard times still found her in her later years, and she fell into a life in poverty. It happened that a coincidence in Sausalito, California led to the re-release of her book. A restaurant owner just happened to read a letter that Ernest Hemingway wrote to his editor Maxwell Perkins. Hemingway’s high praise and the restaurateur’s enthusiasm were enough to convince North Point Press to re-issue the book.

Here is what Ernest Hemingway wrote about Beryl Markham’s ability:

“As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers.”

The resurgence of interest in Ms. Markham’s memoir allowed her to escape poverty and live her final years in relative comfort. It will not help the author now, but I heartily recommend her book to you.

Photos—Mr. Hemingway’s passport picture from 1923, found online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ernest_Hemingway_1923_passport_photo.TIF.jpg and Beryl Markham picture scanned from the cover of her book.

Related video: Read about “World Without Walls” at: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/08/movies/tv-reviews-world-without-walls-about-beryl-markham.html. The documentary was produced by Steven Talbot who played Gilbert in “Leave It To Beaver” and whose father, actor Lyle Talbot, is the narrator.

[1] See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865471185/storycirclenetwo