Books

Item Description

THE ROYAL ROAD TO ROMANCE,  ©The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers, 1925, ours is published by Garden City Publishing, Inc. year unknown. 56 full page Back and White Photos. Endmaps of world showing Richard's circumvention of the Globe. This book is slightly damaged. 

Contents: The first, and in many ways freshest of Richard's fabulous and gay adventures. After graduating Princeton University in early l920s, he sets off secretly to find Romance, to never stop traveling and experiencing is his goal, and to do so on very little money is his reality. To write up his travels and sell them to US magazines en route, then to write a grand book. Richard teams up with a handsome college chum and they go to Europe, climb the Materhorn in the wrong season, ride bikes together in the South of France, gets jailed in Gibraltar, lives on a houseboat in Kashmir with another friend for pennies a day, slogs across the Malay Peninsula, bathes in the Taj Mahal reflective pool nude by moonlight. Goes to Ladakh in The Himalayas, to Afghanistan through the Kyber Pass, stows away on a cruise ship, gets robbed by pirates in Hong Kong, Macao gambling trip. And climbs Mt. Fuji in the Winter--unheard of but he has the photo to prove it! Smashing good fun. And, remarkably good read.

THE GLORIOUS ADVENTURE,  ©The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers, 1927, ours is published by Garden City Publishing, Inc. year unknown. Hardcover. Illustrated with 73 Black and White Photos, 2 maps. Endplates are also maps of Richard's travels. Shelf worn. 

Contents: Richard returns from his first voyage of discovery only to find that he cannot "settle down", requires fixes of voyaging. He thinks up not one but two grand ideas to sell a new book. He'll follow in the steps of his Romantic hero of Greek legend Ulysses, swim the Hellespont, find the Cyclops' Cave and ancient Troy. At the same time he'll pay his own personal tribute to a fallen hero, his literary idol, English poet, Rupert Brooke, who died in World War I on a lonely Greek island. Richard will weep at the grave of this beautiful youth who will now be forever young. Later, he will seek permission to write a serious biography of Brooke, but Brooke's aged mama will not cooperate, possibly seeking to retain the heroes mantle her son bears without baring his son's secret of homosexuality. But this doesn't deter Richard from drinking to the full his cup of hero worship and his secret common bond of romantic passion with the fallen poet and the warm waters of the Aegean Sea.

NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER, ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Company, l929, First Edition, unstated, 368 pages in 6-1/4 by 9-1/4 Inch Dark green cloth Hardcover. Illustrated with 83 Black and White Photos. Inscribed by Author.  Good condition. 

Contents: Off to Central and South America! Richard swims the Panama Canal and pays a 50 Cent toll. Virgin Ghosts. Rebel bandits. Nights in Lima. El Mar Del Sur. Richard gets marooned and plays Robinson Crusoe on an island and finds his man, "Toosday" who saves him. More madcap vagabonding down the Andes on the trail of Pizzarro but also of Harry Franck, an earlier American trekker who is worth reading. Trek with them all with great Wintertime reading.

THE FLYING CARPET, ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing company, 1932, ours is published by Garden City Publishing, Inc. year unknown. Hardcover. Illustrated with 79 full-page Black and White Photos. Dust jacket included, but damanged. 

Contents: Richard's career is really flying high now. He's a huge hit on the lecture trail throughout the USA as the l920s heats up, then all goes boom, or rather bust and the l930s Depression sets in. But does this stop our hero?? Not on your silk underwear. He pretends to smoke cigarettes. Arrives everywhere in formal dress. Carries a cane and wears spats in ads that appear throughout the national press.

Richard decides to fly around the world in search of.....you guessed it Romance. He luckily finds an expert flier in Moy Stevens, a handsome young man, who will save Richard from making many mistakes. Richard buys a bi-winged plane with an open cockpit, so that he can take pictures and Moy can fly. He paints the plane red and gold and dubs it The Flying Carpet. The two madcap airmen make a huge publicity splash. They also do dangerous things like fly across the Sahara to Timbuktu. The rest up by partying with lonely French Foreign Legion, legionnaires While Moy is off fixing the plane, Richard has a two week orgy of cheap wine and visiting forward positions of the Legion fighting the North African tribals. Flying through the Middle East, the take two chubby princesses of Persia on a joy ride, pick up a load of shrunken heads in S. E. Asia that Richard throws out of the plane one at a time as the prove uncomfortable to sit on and seem to be bad luck. They fly as high as they can to photograph the Himalayas of India. Richard takes another moonlight swim at the Taj to prove that he wasn't fibbing about this (as his detractors in the press had accused him of). They visit the White Maharaja of Borneo to find only his wife and daughters at home in the palace. Much fun ensues. They join up with a flying German girl, Elly Beinhorn, "the Flying Fraulein," who Richard will later write an introduction for in her famous book. All this is photographed wonderfully.

SEVEN LEAGUE BOOTS, ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Company, 1935, 417 pages in 6-1/4 by 9-1/4 Inch Hardcover bound in blue cloth. Illustrated with 65 Black and White Photos. Inscribed by Author. Good condition, some staining.

Contents: Richard's last great book before his death at sea in l939, sailing a Chinese Junk from Hong Kong to San Diego World's Fair Exposition. But it's a mighty last ride by our gay adventurer and drinker of experience. His publishers have given him a blank check to travel wherever he wants and do whatever he wants. Doesn't that sound like everyone's dream!? And Richard experiences it to the fullest. As in these other brief descriptions of the books' contents, there can be no adequate summation. There is simply too much to say. And in this case Richard hop scotches the World, going where he will. He visit the infamous assassin who killed the Tsar. Gets his deathbed confession and is still quoted in history books to this day. He visits the giant King Ibn Saud, founder of Saudi Arabia, attempts to go on the Hajj pilgrimage and in a way he does. He goes to Africa's Ethiopia, sees King Haile Selassie and witnesses his armies preparations to stand off the fascists of Italy's Benito Mussolini. It is with a certain foreboding that the reader see Richard wandering into the beginnings of World War II. We, his friends, know that he is not suited for this world of violence and hatred. But this, Richard would not have to suffer. He died, died young and left us these wonderful books of travel, self-exploration and Romance. Read on, gentle reader.

Richard Halliburton's Book Of Marvels - The Occident  ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing company, 1937. 10 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches. Signed. Binding torn. This is very likely a first (and only) edition. Missing dust jacket. RARE. 

This copy bound in blue-green cloth stamped in gold on the front boards and the spine. This copy is signed "Richard Halliburton" in black ink at the top of the front endpaper. The front endpapers feature photographs of New York City. The rear endpapers feature Niagara Falls. Laid into the book is a 4-page pamphlet about Richard Halliburton with a photo of him on the first page, beneath is says "Compliments of The Bobbs-Merrill Company." 

Richard Halliburton's Second Book Of Marvels - The Orient   ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing company, 1938. 10 x 6.9 x 1.3 inches. Red cloth hardcover. good condition, shelf wear. 

This copy os bound in red cloth. Content: Early 20th century American travel writer and adventurer Richard Halliburton presents this volume's tour for school students, introducing the people, religions, architecture, customs, and scenery from Greece to Mt. Fuji in Japan, multi-cultural regions then called "The Orient" and maps of his travel routes. Places featured are Greece and Ephesus, Turkey, King Mausolus's tomb, western Turkey, Colossus-Rhodes, off Turkey, Pharos-lighthouse, Alexandria, Egypt, Sphinx and Pyramids, Egypt, Pyramids Today-Cairo, Egypt, The Labyrinth-Crete, Slave City-western Africa, Victoria Falls, So Africa, Allahs children-Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Enchanted Temple-Petra, Holy Land, The Dead Sea, Rock of Abraham-Jerusalem, Solomon's Temple-Jerusalem, Temple of Jupiter, Syria, Queen of Palmyra, Syria, Bagdad, Persia/Iraq, Babylon-Iraq, Madrasa College and Isfahan-Persia, Udaipur-west India, Palace in Udaipur-west India, Taj Majal, India, Top of the World (Mt. Everest, Nepal/Tibet), Land of Mystery (Lhasa, Tibet), Palace of the Living Gods (Bhuddist Dalai Lama, Lhasa, Tibet), Thirty Million Idols (Hindu temple, Madura, southern India), Tale From the Jungle (Indo-China temple, Angkor, Cambodia), The Great Stone Serpent (Great Wall, China), Magic Mountain (Fujiyama, Japan) ~ From Wikipedia: Richard Halliburton (January 9, 1900 - presumed dead after March 24, 1939) was an American traveler, adventurer, and author. Best known today for having swum the length of the Panama Canal and paying the lowest toll in its history-thirty-six cents-Halliburton was headline news for most of his brief career. His final and fatal adventure, an attempt to sail a Chinese junk, the Sea Dragon, across the Pacific Ocean from Hong Kong to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, made him legendary.

Richard Halliburton: His Story of His Life's Adventure as Told in Letters to His Mother and Father ©Bobbs-Merrill Publishing Company, 1940. Dust jacket damaged but included. Blue cloth hardcover. 

Item Special Note

This item is very heavy: Eight hardover bound books each aproximately 1.5" thick. 

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