Richard Halliburton

Richard Halliburton

Richard Halliburton (born January 7 or January 9, 1900 in Brownsville , Tennessee , † probably after March 23, 1939 in the Pacific ) was an American adventurer and travel writer.

Life

Richard Halliburton was - after the death of a brother - the only son of Wesley and Halle Halliburton. When he was a child, the family moved to Memphis , where his mother taught at the Hutchinson School of Girls. That is probably why Richard Halliburton started school there. He later attended Memphis University for Boys and then an institution in Lawrenceville, where he was prepared for entry into Princeton University . There he began to study in 1921. After his sophomore year at Princeton, he was hired on a ship that was to sail from New Orleans to England, but wanted to give up his career as a seaman in Norfolk, Virginia . However, his parents insisted that he also fulfill the signed contract.

Richard Halliburton toured England and France for half a year after the crossing. From Paris he wrote his father a letter in which he described his ideas about his future life: he wanted to have all the experiences a person could have and on no account die an ordinary death in his bed at home. He decided to make his living as a travel writer, especially since he had already sold an article to Field and Stream for $ 150 . As soon as he finished his studies, he set off on his first world tour with pocket money of 100 dollars and a contract from The Commercial Appeal magazine for 35 dollars. This led him first to Europe and then to Egypt, India and Southeast Asia. In Japan, after running out of money, he was hired as a seaman on the President Madison . He returned home on March 1, 1923.

His adventures did not market as well as he had dreamed, so he began giving lectures about his journey. Halliburton became one of the draft horses of his agency, the Feakins Agency, but eventually suffered a breakdown that led him to a sanatorium. There he edited his notes and articles for his first book. The Royal Road to Romance became a bestseller , selling over 100,000 times in 1926.

On July 4, 1925, Halliburton set out on his next adventure. This time he wanted to re-enact Odysseus' wanderings . As part of this venture, he swam across the Hellespont , as Lord Byron had done. The book The Glorious Adventure was again a great success and together with his lecturing made Halliburton a rich man in 1927. In 1928 he traveled to Latin America to supply the Ladies Home Journal with articles. He also advertised Lucky Strike cigarettes that year . In South America he followed the route of Hernán Cortés . The highlights of the trip were the ascent of Popocatépetl and a bath in the Mayan shrine in Chichén Itzá in the water in which virgins were once sacrificed for the rain god. He also swam in the Panama Canal on this trip . He declared himself to be a ship to the public and paid a fee of 36 cents for the “passage”, which was calculated based on his weight of around 70 kg. Halliburton has remained the only person to have swum the entire length of the Panama Canal. After returning briefly to his homeland to give more lectures, he traveled to Devil's Island to visit the French prison there and Tobago . Again a book emerged from these trips, New Worlds to Conquer .

In the meantime, however, the US was in an economic crisis and the book did not sell as well as expected. Halliburton also lost a large part of its fortune in the stock market crash. In March 1931 he therefore embarked on a spectacular new venture: Halliburton and the pilot Moye Stephens traveled around the world in an open Stearman C-3B aircraft , to which they named The Flying Carpet . The highlights of this trip were a flight over the Sahara and one to Mount Everest . On the way he met Elly Beinhorn ; the two planes flew the same route for a few stages. Halliburton wrote The Flying Carpet in collaboration with Paul Mooney on his return in April 1932 . Although his financial position had not improved sufficiently, he bought an expensive property in Laguna Beach, California before setting off on another trip.

This took him from California across the Caribbean to Europe and then to Asia. He crossed the Alps on the back of an elephant and interviewed the man who had executed the Russian tsarist family in Siberia. The book he wrote after this trip was titled Seven League Boots . Halliburton built his eccentric Hangover House in Laguna Beach according to plans by William Alexander Levy , in which he then put together the two volumes of Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels with Paul Mooney . These children's books were a huge hit.

Last trip

Halliburton's Cenotaph in Memphis

In 1938 he set out for Hong Kong to take a replica Chinese junk to San Francisco , where he was due to arrive for the 1939 World's Fair . However, his boat, the Sea Dragon , had serious defects and, as experienced sailors confirmed, was actually not seaworthy. The initially hired crew let him down and he compared his captain with Captain Bligh . Another problem was Japan's entry into the war . A trip through Japanese waters was not only dangerous because of the pirates present there. Richard Halliburton set sail on February 4, 1939, but returned to port six days later because repairs to the ship were necessary. He started again on March 4th. On the way he got caught in a storm. His last message was received on March 23, 1939 and ended with the words:

"Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here, instead of me."

"Stormy south wind, gusts, lee side under water, wet bunks, rusks, boiled meat, I wish you were here in my place"

His ship and the bodies of the crew were never found; after a few months, Richard Halliburton was pronounced dead.

Works

• The Royal Road to Romance , 1925, German: The hunt for the miracle . An adventurous trip around the world (translated by Johannes von Guenther), List, Leipzig 1926.
• The Glorious Adventure , 1927, German: In the footsteps of Odysseus . A classic adventure (translated by Elsie McCalman), List, Leipzig 1933.
• New Worlds to Conquer , 1929, German: The new Robinson . A journey of discovery (translated by Elsie McCalman), List, Leipzig 1930
• The Flying Carpet , 1932, German: The Flying Carpet . The world from a bird's eye view (translated by Elsie McCalman), List, Leipzig 1934
• Seven League Boots , 1935 ( " Seven Mile Boots " ).
• One Hundred Years of Delightful Indigestion - Memphis Priceless and Treasured Receipts , Introduction by Richard Halliburton, World Traveler, Author and Epicure, James Lee Memorial Academy of Arts, Memphis 1935 ( " One Hundred Years of Delightful Indigestion - Memphis Free and Precious Recipes. Introduction by Richard Halliburton, world traveler, author and connoisseur ” ).
• Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels: the Occident (children's book), 1937, ( "Richard Halliburton's Book of Miracles, the West" ).
• Richard Halliburton's Second Book of Marvels: the Orient (children's book), 1938 ( "Richard Halliburton's Second Book of Miracles, the East" ).
• Richard Halliburton: His Story of His Life's Adventure, as Told in Letters to His Mother and Father , 1940 ( "Richard Halliburton, the story of his adventures told in letters to his parents" ).
• Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels , 1941 ( " Richard Halliburton's Complete Book of Miracles" ).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-4-2005-66576.asp
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated May 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ http://www.opencockpit.net/moye.html
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.