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Seller's Description:
Fine in Fine jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 457 pages, illustrated in b&w. This book "tells the extraordinary life of story of William Leonard Hunt, beginning with his youth and continuing through wordly adventures so numerous and unusual it seems incredible that one man experienced them all. Farini was more than a showman; he was the genius behind hundreds if innovations, from folding theatre seats and the modern parachute, to the "rollerboat, " the protype of which still lies under landfill at the edge of Toronto Harbour." FINE HARDCOVER, FINE DUST JACKET.
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Seller's Description:
Octavo. Black & grey boards. pp viii, 457 + plates. Fine copy. Jacket has creased nick at head of spine, else fine. Biography of William Leonard Hunt, "The Great Farini". William Leonard Hunt was born in Lockport, New York. His parents moved to Hope Township (Port Hope) in 1843, and then to Bowmanville, ON, where he grew up. Fascinated by the circus from an early age, he determined to become an acrobat and trained himself to proficiency. Changing his name to Guillermo Antonio Farini and adopting the stage name "The Great Farini", "he made his most famous tightrope performances at Niagara Falls during 1860, commencing on August 15. His feats included crossing a high wire with a man on his back or with a sack over his entire body, turning somersaults while on the rope, hanging from it by his feet, and other seemingly impossible manoeuvres." (Wikipedia). Farini toured the USA and Europe as an acrobat, becoming famous, retiring in 1869, but not before inventing the standard circus stunt "the human cannonball". "Farini purportedly overcame many obstacles when he traversed the Kalahari Desert on foot during his stay in Africa, allegedly becoming the first white man to survive the crossing. He also claimed to have found the famous Lost City of the Kalahari, but his claims have never been verified."-Wiklipedia. The Lost City is almost certainly a fable.
