In 1925 a book of a new kind took America by storm—The Royal Road to Romance. It was written by twenty-one-year-old Richard Halliburton, just out of Princeton, and immediately became the most widely read non-fiction book of its time. It is doubtful if any other volume of travel and adventure has found so many readers in this century.

After seven years this unquenchable book is as alive as it was the first year—perennially young, enormously popular.

The Glorious Adventure and New Worlds to Conquer, which followed, have had careers little less spectacular. The three books, boldly romantic, picturesque, bright-spirited, have become standard reading for imaginative and restless people of all ages in a dozen countries.

For Halliburton can be counted upon 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, his fourth book, brings a new interest—he now adds the clouds to his adventurous realm. This new story is just as mercurial as the others, and even more perilous for the stay-at-home peace of mind.

The Flying Carpet is the airplane in which the author and his pilot-companion, Moye Stephens, Jr., follow a royal road to romance in the air.

Timbuctoo is their very first objective, chiefly because the name sounds far-away and mysterious. Starting from California, they fly to New York, ship to France, and taking to the air again continue on to Africa. From Fez, they reach their almost mythical goal by flying two thousand miles across the Sahara. Failing to achieve success as slave traders in Timbuctoo, they fly back north and spend two months with the French Foreign Legion in Morocco, living the life of the Legionnaires and learning at  first hand the truth about this heroic and disreputable army.

From Morocco, with diverting incidents marking every landing along the way, the Flying Carpet carries them on through Europe to Constantinople. In the Holy Land, visiting sacred and historic ground with his reconstructive imagination, Halliburton reveals this ancient land anew—Galilee and the Dead Sea—Jerusalem and the incredible carved city of Petra.

Next the two flyers drift across Arabia to Bagdad, where the Crown Prince decides that his flight with them aboard the Flying Carpet over the mosques and bazaars of his native city is "just like the Arabian nights."

In Persia, the author's most amusing tale, perhaps, is the story of the Flying Carpet's encounter with two Persian princesses, who prove to be greater ladies than it is equipped to carry. In contrasting mood is the story of Gabriel, his nightingale, a story made memorable by its poetic subject and unusual beauty.

At the Taj Mahal, for the only time in this narrative, the author amuses himself by repeating a previous experience—a swim in the lily pool which, according to rumor, is only three inches deep!

Mt. Everest beckons to him next. With the Flying Carpet pushed to its utmost, Halliburton and his companion visit the highest mountain in the world, and succeed in photographing its unrivaled pinnacle before they are forced back at eighteen thousand feet.

In Singapore the Carpet acquires pontoons and flies off to Borneo to visit the White Ranee of Sarawak, whose husband rules half a million Dyak head-hunters.

The head-hunters themselves entertain the flyers. Following the rivers deep into the interior, the Flying Carpet calls upon the most remote and primitive tribes, who had never even heard of an airplane, much less seen one. The greatest of their chiefs, encouraged by a little of his own rice-wine, dares to ride aboard the Carpet—an experience so thrilling that he presents his visitors with a dozen human heads as a token of appreciation.

Landing in Manila Bay, the two sky-vagabonds, back on American soil at last, are feted by the city to celebrate their arrival in the first American plane to fly to the Philippines.

These enviable adventures are told gaily and dramatically. Their footloose spirit, as liberated 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.

From the dust jacket of the Bobbs-Merrill edition

 

Richard 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.

He proved this with his Royal Road to Romance, in which he showed that a young man can see the world without a cent in his pocket, and have a whale of a time doing it. Hundreds of thousands of people bought it and clamored for more, which materialized in The Glorious Adventure, Halliburton's adventures in the land of old myths and legends, and New Worlds to Conquer in which he led his readers over the old trails of Cortez and of the old Spanish discoverers.

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 Raner 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.

From the dust jacket of the Garden City edition