The Flying Carpet: Adventures in a Biplane from Timbuktu to Everest and Beyond

Author(s): Richard Halliburton

General Travel Writing

Thirsting for a new adventure and announcing that 'an adventure not in the air is obsolete', Richard Halliburton hired pioneer aviator Moye Stephens in 1931 and fearlessly set out to circle the world in an open cockpit biplane optimistically named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.


Product Information

'From the Jazz Age through the Great Depression to the eve of World War II, he thrilled an entire generation of readers. Clever, resourceful, undaunted, cheerful in the face of dreadful odds, ever-optimistic about the world and the people around him, always scheming about his next adventure - a spokesman for the youth of a generation.' - James O'Reilly

Richard Halliburton (1900-1939) was America's great adventurer and one of the most successful adventure travel writers of the 20th century. Through a life spent chasing horizons and concocting ever more daring schemes - from swimming the length of the Panama Canal to flying around the world in an open cockpit plane or crossing the Alps on an elephant - Halliburton dazzled the western world. His final adventure, sailing a junk across the Pacific, was also his last. Halliburton disappeared in March 1939 and was never seen again. His wild adventures live on in the books that have captivated millions of readers and inspired generations of writers. 'Let those who wish have their respectability - I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous and the romantic.'

General Fields

  • : 9781848859142
  • : Bloomsbury
  • : bloomsbury
  • : October 2011
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Richard Halliburton
  • : Paperback
  • : 910.4
  • : 264