Top Side Ricksha

[Place of publication not identified]: Privately Printed, 1938. Hardcover book. A private printing of a typescript by Bixby [1890 - 1965], who was involved with aviation at an early stage and clearly spent extensive time in China in the aviation industry during the 1930s. The book exists in three copies on OCLC. This copy is inscribed on the ffep "Topside. This is the first printed copy of Harold's book sent to me by Dr. Leary - June 22, 1968. ECB". This was inscribed by his wife, Elizabeth Case Bixby. It is intriguing to think that this might be Dr. Timothy Leary, of LSD fame. At the foot of the title page is an explanation of the title. "In the pidgin English of Shanghai the expression for airplane is "Top Side Ricksha, Coolie no have got," meaning of course, a conveyance which travels over-head and which has no visible means of propulsion."

Bixby was born in St. Louis in 1890. As a student of 19, he applied for a passport, sojourning in Tokyo, with the intention of traveling in Russia. According to his obituary, he flew across the US twice with Lindbergh in 1928. Col. Lindbergh once told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it was Bixby who named his plane "The Spirit of St. Louis." Bixby qualified as a balloon pilot in 1925 and by 1929, he and others formed the St. Louis Aviation Corp to develop aviation projects. In 1933, he surveyed the feasibility of commercial flights between Shanghai & Manila. Pan American World Airways applied to a franchise to regularly fly between Manila and Hong Kong as a result of his work. In 1937, he was manager of the Chinese National Airways in Shanghai. This book clearly contains his summary of aviation in China at that early stage.
(Obit St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Fri, Nov 19, 1965 Page 25, via ancestry dot com).

OCLC: 83869620 SF Museum & Yale; OCLC: 36678716 at the Univ. of Miami. Thick 4to, 392 leaves, 14 unnumbered leaves of plates. Bound in blue cloth, gilt title on front board. Covers marked, some evidence of mouse tracks on foredge.