Review | Book review: American Daredevil – world’s first celebrity travel writer recalled
Richard Halliburton, adventurer, bestselling author and global celebrity, was lost at sea trying to sail a junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco in 1939. A new biography reveals a restless soul
By Cathryn J. Prince
Chicago Review Press
Given the scale of international fame and celebrity he achieved during the 1920s and ’30s, the most remarkable thing about charismatic travel writer and adventurer Richard Halliburton is how few people today have heard of him.
Halliburton’s undeserved obscurity might be redressed with a new comprehensive and assiduously researched biography of the man described by Time magazine as “an innocent sort of Byron”, who thrilled readers with tales of derring-do for the best part of two decades.
“I wanted to examine Halliburton’s life from the perspective of what motivated him as a writer, how his writings and adventures fit into the context of the time, and how he fits in alongside other writers of that era,” explains Prince, who spent more than two years researching and writing the book.