[ROLLER COASTER.]

ANONYMOUS. A cruise; or, three months on the Continent. By a Naval Officer ...

London, printed for Law and Whittaker, 1818. 8vo, pp. iv, 129, [1], with engraved frontispiece and 3 engraved plates, all in contemporary colouring; title-page a little spotted and dust-soiled but a very good copy in near contemporary green polished half calf, gilt spine. From the collection of Charles Wright with his ownership stamp on verso of frontispiece and contemporary Ms. signature on inside front cover; bookplate of John Evan Bedford. First edition of an anonymously published account of a three months long trip taking in the Low Countries and Paris in the summer of 1817. The author travelled to Ostend, and then proceeded to Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Delft, Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and finally arriving in Paris.The frontispiece illustrates one of the world's first roller coasters, the Aerial Walks ('Promenades Aeriennes') in the Beajon Gardens in Paris, which were only inaugurated in the summer of 1817. The Aerial Walks had a heart-shaped layout with two tracks that flowed in opposite directions from a central tower. They then went around the course, the first ever coaster to have wooden cars with wheels connected to a metal track, came together at the bottom and ascended in parallel lift hills. Speeds of up to 40 mph could be reached. The text gives much useful detail about this new Parisian entertainment, also recounting that already two people had died when one of the car's wheels slipped out of the track. This well may be one of the earliest accounts and illustrations of a roller coaster in an English book.

• GBP 550.00 > other currencies
• ordernr.: A1084

• bookseller: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)