L’Homme Volant

Cover of Le Petit Parisien from 1894, showing a picture of Otto Lilienthal, titled L’Homme-Volant, which means Flying Man in French.

Pictured above is the cover of Le Petit Parisien from 9 September 1894. It shows German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal dangling from a building cornice, with a crowd of onlookers below. According to the paper, the illustration was drawn from a photograph which was taken a few days earlier in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lilienthal was perched on the roof of a building, about to demonstrate his glider to a crowd of people who had gathered below. A gust of wind caught his wings, which caused him to fall over the edge of the roof. He managed to slow his fall by catching a cornice, which is when the picture was taken. The article claims that Lilienthal then fell onto the roof of a house, injuring himself. It’s a terrible scenario to consider, and it illustrates the constant dangers associated with human flight. The article goes on to discuss flight and how the idea of flying infects the human imagination:

What a beautiful dream come true this would be, if we could soar high in the great solitudes of the air and get lost in infinity, through space![1]

Read more about other ideas for flying machines here.


[1]: Quotes and summary cited from: “L’Homme-Volant.” Le Petit Parisien, Supplément Littéraire Illustré. September 9, 1894. 294-295.