Bicycling : A History. [Dandy Riders; Boneshakers; Ordinaries; Xtra-Ordinaries; Cycling De Luxe; On Civil and Military Occasions; The Complete Cyclist; For Pleasure and Profit : Racing; Newer Types; etc]

New York ; Washington : Praeger Publishers, 1972., 1972. Very Good. 214 pp., illustrated, 23 cm. ; several period photographs showing bicycles and cyclists, portraits of Reg Harris and Norm Shiel ; drawings from contemporary magazines, advertisements and newspapers ; ex-library, labels, pocket, stamps, paste-down on front ep from dustjacket flap ; back hinge shaken ; "The illustrations included in the book are unbelievably good too, with early photographs of the famous Dursley-Pedersen (1893), complete with hammock-saddle; the astonishing Crypto "Bantam" (1895); and the stylish Singer de luxe of the Edwardian period, to name but a few. There is even a photograph of the legendary G.P. Mills on the Humber tricycle aboard which he beat the Land's End to John O'Groats record in 1893. I am greatly in the author's debt for the wealth of citations he furnishes to a hitherto unknown literature on bicycling and eagerly look forward to reading Across Siberia on a Bicycle, Sketches Awheel in Iberia, and--most particularly--In Jutland with a Cycle. Frederick Alderson is also the author of The Comic Postcard in English Life and if his grasp of that subject is anything like what is on display here I can only imagine what pleasures lie in store if I ever decide to bone up on that branch of the postalistic arts. So straddle a saddle, then paddle and skedaddle to a bookshop and get yourself a copy of this corking little history." ; LCCN: 72-80696 ; OCLC: 532411 ; VG