Favorite Book on Travel

Has anyone cited the book Around the World on a Bicycle by Thomas Stevens, 1884? This is a two-volume work. The author was a professional adventurer who must have been in marvelous physical condition. Around 1882 he started from San Francisco, rode one of those bicycles with the large front wheel, described in Victorian florid English the character of the places to and through which he rode.

After crossing North America, he crossed England, then Europe, the Middle East. He ate local food, gave demonstrations of his bicycle in village centers, forded mountain streams, until he got to Afghanistan which wouldn't allow him in because of risks. He took a boat around Arabia, went from Karachi to Calcutta and possibly farther, then went to China where he was nearly done in were it not for protection by officials.

After China he crossed Japan and then returned to California. The distance traveled on bicycle still is in the Guinness Record book: about 15,000 mi.

I was the first one to take out Volume 2 at the Lehigh Univ. Library -- after it had sat on the shelves for at least 90 years.

-Jim

 

 

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