Richard Halliburton

If you’ve never heard of Richard Halliburton or only know a little snippet about his life, I’d encourage you to dig deeper into this fascinating American icon of the early 20th Century. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

In short, Richard Halliburton was a best-selling author, travel writer, and adventurer. He explored famous historical and archeological sites all over the world in a fresh way. If he wanted to show readers the Panama Canal, he wouldn’t simply take a picture—he’s swim the entire length of it, all while taking a risk in the crocodile-infested waters. If he wanted to tell readers the Taj Mahal, he would sneak into the gates at night so he could swim in the pools beneath the stars. The resulting story would bring an extra level of fascination and excitement to a standard description of a unique location.

But he was so much more than that with this larger-than-life personality and storytelling ability. During the height of his fame, he was as popular of an American figure as any of the early movie stars or athletes were. He sold more than a million books during his lifetime, which was quite impressive given the fact that many of those sales occurred during the Great Depression.

The version I’m presenting of Richard Halliburton I’m presenting in these fictionalized novels is as true to Richard’s personality as I can make it. While most of the escapades in this series are largely fiction, there are some stories that are true and often based off true events. In researching for this series, I spent time reading Richard’s travel journals from the Rhodes College archives that are nearly a hundred years old at this point.

If you want to get to know more about him, I suggest reading his first book “The Royal Road to Romance.” It’s a great primer on his first big adventure and the book the catapulted him into worldwide fame.

Happy reading!