author
Evan John David
1877–1961
Raised in a Welsh immigrant family and largely self-educated, this American writer moved from early aviation nonfiction to sweeping historical fiction. His work pairs practical curiosity with a taste for big, adventurous stories.
1 Audiobook
Aircraft : its development in war and peace and its commercial future
by Evan John David
About the author
Born in 1877 and dying in 1961, Evan John David is best known today for Aircraft: Its Development in War and Peace and Its Commercial Future (1919), an early book on aviation that reflected the excitement and rapid change of flight in the years just after World War I.
Biographical details available online suggest he was the son of Welsh parents who had settled in the coal-mining region of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and that he had little formal schooling. That background helps explain the strong self-taught energy often associated with his career.
He also wrote fiction, including the historical novel As Runs the Glass (1943). Taken together, his books show an author interested both in modern technology and in dramatic storytelling across different periods of American life.