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Contents:
The first, and in many ways freshest of Richard's fabulous and gay
adventures. After graduating Princeton University in early l920s, he
sets off secretly to find Romance, to never stop traveling and
experiencing is his goal, and to do so on very little money is his
reality. To write up his travels and sell them to US magazines en route,
then to write a grand book. Richard teams up with a handsome college
chum and they go to Europe, climb the Materhorn in the wrong season,
ride bikes together in the South of France, gets jailed in Gibraltar,
lives on a houseboat in Kashmir with another friend for pennies a day,
slogs across the Malay Peninsula, bathes in the Taj Mahal reflective
pool nude by moonlight. Goes to Ladakh in The Himalayas, to Afghanistan
through the Kyber Pass, stows away on a cruise ship, gets robbed by
pirates in Hong Kong, Macao gambling trip. And climbs Mt. Fuji in the
Winter--unheard of but he has the photo to prove it! Smashing good fun.
And, remarkably good read.
Contents:
Richard returns from his first voyage of discovery only to find that he
cannot "settle down", requires fixes of voyaging. He thinks up
not one but two grand ideas to sell a new book. He'll follow in the
steps of his Romantic hero of Greek legend Ulysses, swim the Hellespont,
find the Cyclops' Cave and ancient Troy. At the same time he'll pay his
own personal tribute to a fallen hero, his literary idol, English poet,
Rupert Brooke, who died in World War I on a lonely Greek island. Richard
will weep at the grave of this beautiful youth who will now be forever
young. Later, he will seek permission to write a serious biography of
Brooke, but Brooke's aged mama will not cooperate, possibly seeking to
retain the heroes mantle her son bears without baring his son's secret
of homosexuality. But this doesn't deter Richard from drinking to the
full his cup of hero worship and his secret common bond of romantic
passion with the fallen poet and the warm waters of the Aegean Sea.
Contents:
Off to Central and South America! Richard swims the Panama Canal and
pays a 50 Cent toll. Virgin Ghosts. Rebel bandits. Nights in Lima. El
Mar Del Sur. Richard gets marooned and plays Robinson Crusoe on an
island and finds his man, "Toosday" who saves him. More madcap
vagabonding down the Andes on the trail of Pizzarro but also of Harry
Franck, an earlier American trekker who is worth reading. Trek with them
all with great Wintertime reading.
Contents:
Richard's career is really flying high now. He's a huge hit on the
lecture trail throughout the USA as the l920s heats up, then all goes
boom, or rather bust and the l930s Depression sets in. But does this
stop our hero?? Not on your silk underwear. He pretends to smoke
cigarettes. Arrives everywhere in formal dress. Carries a cane and wears
spats in ads that appear throughout the national press. For
a third book Richard decides to fly around the world in search
of.....you guessed it Romance. He luckily finds an expert flier in Moy
Stevens, a handsome young man, who will save Richard from making many
mistakes. Richard buys a bi-winged plane with an open cockpit, so that
he can take pictures and Moy can fly. He paints the plane red and gold
and dubs it The Flying Carpet. The two madcap airmen make a huge
publicity splash. They also do dangerous things like fly across the
Sahara to Timbuktu. The rest up by partying with lonely French Foreign
Legion, legionnaires While Moy is off fixing the plane, Richard has a
two week orgy of cheap wine and visiting forward positions of the Legion
fighting the North African tribals. Flying through the Middle East, the
take two chubby princesses of Persia on a joy ride, pick up a load of
shrunken heads in S. E. Asia that Richard throws out of the plane one at
a time as the prove uncomfortable to sit on and seem to be bad luck.
They fly as high as they can to photograph the Himalayas of India.
Richard takes another moonlight swim at the Taj to prove that he wasn't
fibbing about this (as his detractors in the press had accused him of).
They visit the White Maharaja of Borneo to find only his wife and
daughters at home in the palace. Much fun ensues. They join up with a
flying German girl, Elly Beinhorn, "the Flying Fraulein," who
Richard will later write an introduction for in her famous book. All
this is photographed wonderfully.
Contents:
Richard's last great book before his death at sea in l939, sailing a
Chinese Junk from Hong Kong to San Diego World's Fair Exposition. But
it's a mighty last ride by our gay adventurer and drinker of experience.
His publishers have given him a blank check to travel wherever he wants
and do whatever he wants. Doesn't that sound like everyone's dream!? And
Richard experiences it to the fullest. As in these other brief
descriptions of the books' contents, there can be no adequate summation.
There is simply too much to say. And in this case Richard hop scotches
the World, going where he will. He visit the infamous assassin who
killed the Tsar. Gets his deathbed confession and is still quoted in
history books to this day. He visits the giant King Ibn Saud, founder of
Saudi Arabia, attempts to go on the Hajj pilgrimage and in a way he
does. He goes to Africa's Ethiopia, sees King Haile Selassie and
witnesses his armies preparations to stand off the fascists of Italy's
Benito Mussolini. It is with a certain foreboding that the reader see
Richard wandering into the beginnings of World War II. We, his friends,
know that he is not suited for this world of violence and hatred. But
this, Richard would not have to suffer. He died, died young and left us
these wonderful books of travel, self-exploration and Romance. Read on,
gentle reader.
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