Across Asia on a Bicycle: The Journey of Two American Students from Constantinople to Peking. by ALLEN, Thomas Gaskell Jr. & William Lewis SACHTLEBEN - 1894

New York: The Century Co., 1894. First edition of this elusive title. Octavo. xii, [4], 234 pp. including a frontispiece portrait of both cyclists standing beside their bikes plus numerous ful and vignette photographic illustrations of sights along the journey. Publisher's bleu cloth with gilt spine and cover lettering, large gilt device resembling the globe n front (same device on rear blind-stamped). Aside front a very early (1901) previous owner's signature on the front blank, an excellent copy.Published at the height of the bicycle craze in America this book details the authors' voyage; The cycled across Europe, then headed west from Turkey (where they became the first Americans to summit Mt. Ararat) through the Gobi Desert, through middle China and all the way to Peking. A feat they claim had not been accomplished since Marco Polo. From the introduction - "We were actuated by no desire to make a "record" in bicycle travel, although we covered 15,044 miles on the wheel, the longest continuous land journey ever made around the world." The steamed out of Shanghai and landed in San Francisco and then bicycled all the way to New York City. They were both students at the University of Washington.