Richard Halliburton: His Story of His Life's Adventure, As Told in Letters to His Mother and Father

by Richard Halliburton

A unique autobiography of a young American's world-wide pursuit of danger and romance. Based on letters he wrote his parents, Halliburton shares his daily life and his adventure & dreams with them. In early 1939, Halliburton sailed eastward on a Wenchow-styled Chinese junk named The Sea Dragon. Nine hundred miles southeast of Yokohama, on March 23, 1939, the ship headed into a typhoon. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen again.Halliburton was presumed lost at sea and later declared dead on October 5, 1939.

Genres: Travel

430 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Writer, Lecturer, and World Traveler, Richard Halliburton published numerous books during his short lifetime. During his world travels, he visited exotic locales such as the Taj Mahal in India, climbed the Matterhorn, flew across the Sahara desert in a bi-winged plane, and swam the entire length of the Panama Canal. He also roamed the Mediterranean Sea retracing the route followed by Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey and crossed the Swiss Alps on the back of an elephant in a recreation of Hannibal's expedition. Halliburton died (or, more accurately, disappeared) in March 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 around March 23-24, 1939. His body was never recovered

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

My mother always raved about Richard Halliburton, a dashing adventurer always in the news when she was growing up. This book was from her collection. It's a biography based on his letters to his parents, very personal and truthful, unlike the coverage of many of his exploits. I might have gotten more of a kick out of the fantastic version of events.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography made up of letters that Richard Halliburton wrote and mailed to his parents from college and from various places that he traveled. There are a few comments added by his father. What we have here is a more down-to-earth look at the adventures that were covered in Halliburton's travel books.

I would have given this book 5 stars if I had read the book without reading anything else about Halliburton. I understand from other sources that the letters were very heavily censored. It was difficult to know for sure exactly what had been omitted. I could tell that Halliburton's father didn't directly contradict dubious incidents recounted in Halliburton's books. I could not tell if it was because they didn't appear in the letters or that he chose to delete them. He also maintained the fiction that Richard didn't have a partner. There are a few places where someone was mentioned but not named. For example, at one point Halliburton refers to "the four of us" when he and his parents only add up to three.