Seven League Boots - Halliburton, Richard

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Résumé :
Some men lead lives of such rare intensity that they disappear into the mists of their own legend. Such a man was Richard Halliburton - Dreamer -Traveler - Poet - Bon Vivant and doomed to die. ?Seven League Boots? was his fifth and last book, and details his epic adventures in a variety of remote places. I had been commissioned to go anywhere in the world I wished and write whatever pleased me. My only orders were to move fast, visit strange places, to meet whomever was interesting - and to start at once, Halliburton wrote. His subsequent book illustrates how he followed these orders with passion and abandon. America's favorite adventure writer dined with Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, interviewed the infamous assassin of Czar Nicholas II in Russia, tried to sneak into the forbidden city of Mecca, and finally, rode an elephant over the Alps in the tracks of Hannibal. It is Halliburton at his best, reckless and romantic, and it is the last chapter of a life grown tragic. Incapable of writing a dull page, Halliburton nevertheless was a captive of his own press. His insatiable readers demanded ever more death-defying accounts. Nearing forty, physically exhausted, and in financial trouble, Halliburton thought to roll the dice once again, hoping that the charm which had always saved him in the past would materialize one more time. It didn't! Soon after finishing this book, the intrepid traveler ignored the warnings of seasoned sailors and set sail on the ship that would take him away from his book-hungry public and into the arms of a watery death. This, his final book, is the ink-stained headstone of Halliburton's amazing life.

Biographie:
Richard Halliburton was a writer, lecturer, and world traveler. He published numerous books in his short lifetime, including The Royal Road to Romance, Glorious Adventure, and The Complete Book of Marvels. Halliburton is known for having paid the lowest toll to cross the Panama Canal, which he swam in 1928, paying 36 cents. Born in Tennessee in 1900, Halliburton died in 1939 as he and his crew attempted to sail a Chinese junk, the Sea Dragon, from Hong Kong to San Francisco as a publicity stunt. The vessel was unseaworthy and went down in a storm, apparently shortly after Halliburton sent out his last signal: Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here-instead of me!