Richard Halliburton – författare

"I've just given myself an airplane and I want you to fly us to all the outlandish places in the world, Turkey, Persia, Paris and - Pasadena. We're going to fly across deserts, over mountains, rescue imprisoned princesses and fight dragons. We must have the world. We can have the world!"Thirsting for a new adventure and announcing that 'an adventure not in the air is obsolete', Richard Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens in 1931 and fearlessly set out to circle the world in an open cockpit biplane optimistically named The Flying Carpet. For Halliburton it was the ultimate in romantic, risky exploration and was a means of seeing the world in a way that few had ever seen it before.True to form, his journey was breathtakingly audacious. They performed aerobatics in Fez, landed in mysterious Timbuktu, spent time with the French Foreign Legion in Algeria and explored Cairo, Damascus and Petra. In Iran, they met legendary aviatrix Ella Beinhorn and gave Princess Mahin Banu a ride. In Iraq, it was the turn of King Faisal's young son, Ghazi, who was escorted by two RAF fighter planes. In India, they flew over the Taj Mahal - upside down - and, soaring over the Himalayas, Halliburton took the first aerial photograph of Everest. In Borneo they were entertained by Sylvia Brooke, the 'White Queen of Borneo', and by the chief of the Iban Dyak headhunters, who gave them dozens of shrunken heads.A journey as dazzling as Halliburton himself and, with the world at war less than a decade later, marking the end of an era, the story of The Flying Carpet is as captivating today as it was to the world 80 years ago.

By the early 1930s America had one literary treasure that risked his life to please its readers. Richard Halliburton had already become a best-selling travel author and could have retired comfortably on the immense wealth gained from the sale of his first two books. Yet some men are born to dare, and Halliburton was one these. NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER was Halliburton’s third book and contains a knapsack full of that adventurer’s gold—dreams brought to reality by the alchemy of his courage and daring. The book details how Halliburton set off for Latin America in search of adventure, and find it he did. He dived to the bottom of the Mayan Well of Death, from which hundreds of skeletons had been dredged, then swam fifty miles down the length of the Panama Canal. Not content, he climbed to the crest of Mexico’s lofty Mount Popocatepetl, twice, and roamed over the infamous Devil’s Island. Yet his most amazing adventure occurred when he had himself marooned on the same island which had once held Robinson Crusoe captive. “Somewhere a lizard stirred the leaves...Furtively I looked about me, realizing that in the darkness the boa-constrictors would be abroad creeping forth from the ancient tombs and slinking down the leafy avenues,” Halliburton wrote. This is Halliburton at is best—fatalistic about his own safety, poetic about his chances of survival, and determined to bring home a hair-raising tale of adventure from the Latin lands of legend.

Seven League Boots, which was first published in 1935 and his fifth and final book, details American adventurer Richard Halliburton’s epic adventures in a variety of remote places. The author of The Royal Road to Romance, who seems incapable of writing a dull page, reports each of his new adventures with the same contagious zest, the same charm and swing and dash that have won such unrivaled popularity for his other tales. In this fifth and final book, richly illustrated throughout with striking pictures, the reader will be taken on a journey of Halliburton’s dinner with Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia; his interview with the infamous assassin of Czar Nicholas II in Russia; his attempt to sneak into the forbidden city of Mecca; and, finally, his elephant march over the Alps in the tracks of Hannibal. It is Halliburton at his best, reckless and romantic.

THEY FLEW THROUGH THE AIR WITH GREATEST OF EASERichard Halliburton can be counted on to lead his readers into strange places, into hilarious difficulties, into new appreciations of history and romance—and never to qualify his outrageous philosophy of reckless living with a single sober moral.The Flying Carpet is his latest, his most modern book—in which he takes us around the world by airplane. Timbuctoo, because it was far away and mysterious, was his first destination. From there, the author and his pilot-companion, Moye Stephens, follow a “royal road to romance” through the sky, dropping down on Fez, Morocco and the French Foreign Legion, The Holy Land, Galilee, Baghdad in mysterious Arabia, Persia, and India; flying over the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest, investigating Singapore, speeding to Borneo to visit the white Ranee whose husband rules half a million head hunters, and ending in Manila, making airplane records, enjoying unprecedented thrilling experiences, flying into remote places where airplanes had never been heard of before.These enviable adventures are told gaily and dramatically. Their footloose spirit, as free as the air through which the Flying Carpet sailed, will prove fatal to the contentment of those readers who have not yet achieved the realization of their own travel dreams.

THE ROYAL ROAD TO ROMANCE in which a gay young romanticist goes laughing and beating and fighting his vagabond way into the glamorous corners of the world.Richly illustrated throughout.“Impetuous to utter recklessness, laughing at hardships, dreaming of beauty, ardent for adventure, Richard Halliburton has managed to sing into the pages of this glorious book his own exultant spirit of young and freedom.”—Chicago Post“The mad, exhilarating, and joyous spirit of Richard Halliburton’s Royal Road to Romance is the very incarnation of youth, with its horizons of rainbows and its sparkling, unquenchable, enthusiastic extravagances.”—Boston Transcript“This wild young American who recently conquered the unruly waters of the classic Hellespont writes as impetuously and as dramatically as he swims.”—Memphis Commercial Appeal“Richard Halliburton’s tale of travel and adventure is one of the most fascinating books of its kind ever written. It is a glorious story of the irresponsibility of youth, of dauntless spirit of the age, told with a captivating charm and a swing and a dash that take one’s breath away.”—Detroit News

Boys and girls all over the world know the name of Richard Halliburton. They have heard grown-ups talk about The Royal Road to Romance, The Glorious Adventure, New Worlds to Conquer, The Flying Carpet and Seven League Boots. These books have broken records in the field of travel and adventure. They are bestsellers year in and year out.Now Mr. Halliburton has written a book just for his younger friends (but just to try and keep father and mother or uncle and aunt away from it!) and in it he has kept a promise he made to himself when he studied geography in school. In those days his eager wish was to travel, to see the places he had read about. He swore that when he became a man he would see that his sons not only studied their geography but lived it too. Now he has been to the four corners of the world and beheld the wonders of nature and man. But he is a bachelor, and has no sons of his own. So he has adopted all boys and girls and here he takes them with him on a personally conducted tour to live geography with him—the most thrilled geography anyone could imagine.This book represents the cream of his adventures. Beginning with the wonders of our own continent we travel and adventure with him to South America and to Europe.No dramatic incident, no fascinating legend relating to his marvels has been omitted. Richard Halliburton has spared himself no trouble, no expense to make this book complete and beautiful. The illustrations are many and inspiring. Out of his first-hand knowledge of the notable scenes and works of our world, he has chosen those that have most appealed to his own imagination, and with his story-telling gift, simple, direct, enthusiastic, he makes them live to the imagination of all boys and girls. For he has the heart of a boy and he speaks to the heart of youth.

Boys and girls all over the world know the name of Richard Halliburton. They have heard grown-ups talk about The Royal Road to Romance, The Glorious Adventure, New Worlds to Conquer, The Flying Carpet and Seven League Boots. These books have broken records in the field of travel and adventure. They are bestsellers year in and year out.Now Mr. Halliburton has written a book just for his younger friends (but just to try and keep father and mother or uncle and aunt away from it!) and in it he has kept a promise he made to himself when he studied geography in school. In those days his eager wish was to travel, to see the places he had read about. He swore that when he became a man he would see that his sons not only studied their geography but lived it too. Now he has been to the four corners of the world and beheld the wonders of nature and man. But he is a bachelor, and has no sons of his own. So he has adopted all boys and girls and here he takes them with him on a personally conducted tour to live geography with him—the most thrilled geography anyone could imagine.Following on from his Book of Marvels: The Occident, this present volume provides another exciting 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,” complete with maps of his travel routes.No dramatic incident, no fascinating legend relating to his marvels has been omitted. Richard Halliburton has spared himself no trouble, no expense to make this book complete and beautiful. The illustrations are many and inspiring. Out of his first-hand knowledge of the notable scenes and works of our world, he has chosen those that have most appealed to his own imagination, and with his story-telling gift, simple, direct, enthusiastic, he makes them live to the imagination of all boys and girls. For he has the heart of a boy and he speaks to the heart of youth.

With a new foreword by Tahir Shah, this book is one most captivating travel books of the 20th century.It was perhaps inevitable that Richard Halliburton, such a romantic, imaginative wanderer, would follow in the footsteps of another legendary traveller - Odysseus. Halliburton's second book, The Glorious Adventure, describes his journey through the Mediterranean in the shadow of his mythical hero.In Greece, Halliburton charged Mount Olympus 'in order to visit the gods that dwelled there'; he swam the Hellespont as Byron had before him and journeyed on to Troy, where Odysseus's long adventure began. He sailed to Stromboli in the Tyrrhenian Sea, home of Aeolus, god of the winds; then to the Bay of Naples, Circeo - 'island' of Circe - and Li Galli, the siren isles that shimmered off the Amalfi coast. Battling through the Straits of Messina, Odysseus's Scylla and Charybdis, he explored Sicily and Corfu before setting out for the shores of Ithaca, long-forgotten home for one, the end of an adventure for another.As epic and eventful as The Odyssey itself, The Glorious Adventure evokes the romance of another time, when heroes and gods walked the earth.

"I've just given myself an airplane and I want you to fly us to all the outlandish places in the world, Turkey, Persia, Paris and - Pasadena. We're going to fly across deserts, over mountains, rescue imprisoned princesses and fight dragons. We must have the world. We can have the world!"Thirsting for a new adventure and announcing that 'an adventure not in the air is obsolete', Richard Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens in 1931 and fearlessly set out to circle the world in an open cockpit biplane optimistically named The Flying Carpet. For Halliburton it was the ultimate in romantic, risky exploration and was a means of seeing the world in a way that few had ever seen it before.True to form, his journey was breathtakingly audacious. They performed aerobatics in Fez, landed in mysterious Timbuktu, spent time with the French Foreign Legion in Algeria and explored Cairo, Damascus and Petra. In Iran, they met legendary aviatrix Ella Beinhorn and gave Princess Mahin Banu a ride. In Iraq, it was the turn of King Faisal's young son, Ghazi, who was escorted by two RAF fighter planes. In India, they flew over the Taj Mahal - upside down - and, soaring over the Himalayas, Halliburton took the first aerial photograph of Everest. In Borneo they were entertained by Sylvia Brooke, the 'White Queen of Borneo', and by the chief of the Iban Dyak headhunters, who gave them dozens of shrunken heads.A journey as dazzling as Halliburton himself and, with the world at war less than a decade later, marking the end of an era, the story of The Flying Carpet is as captivating today as it was to the world 80 years ago.