motoring romances

I've recently accumulated several novels written in the teens, celebrating the new recreation of motoring, and tying it directly or indirectly to the more general romance novel genre. And I'd like to get a list started of others you've come across.

My favorite so far is A Six-Cylinder Courtship by Edward Salisbury Field. The entire books is littered with motoring terms and allusions. It's brilliantly done.

Another I just finished is Five Gallons of Gasoline by Morris B. Wells and another un-named author. A bit of mystery there. This is not as well written, but the heroine chooses the right man. I highly approve of him.

The Lightning Conductor is a motoring romance and is also epistolary - in the form of letters from the daughter to her rich father at home. She has decided to change her European travel plans, purchasing a motor car instead of taking trains, and dragging her aunt along with her through the Italian countryside. This one has more substance than the others mentioned above. It was written by a husband and wife team, and can also qualify as a travelogue.

I see that it has sequels.

I spent some time and money at the garage this morning, having new tires put on and such. What better reading material (everyone else was playing with their phones) than a motoring romance?
I'm reading The Flying Mercury by Eleanor M. Ingram. It's not as light as some of the others, and I think it might crossover into a right living theme as well. There is a n'er-do-well nephew who seems poised for rehabilitation.
One of the best features of the book are the multiple colored plates throughout the book, with illustrations that are much nicer than is typical. I'll scan a couple next week and post them. One in particular reminds me of Alma Tadema's work. The illustrator is Edmund Frederick.
Oh, and each page has a decorative banner. Well worth the exhorbitant price of $5.

Here's my favorite plate:

And a couple more




The story line was predictable and actually, the writing was pedestrian (ha ha). Cousin Dick did grow into his role, and the romance concluded with very little action or suspense.
The main value of the book is visual, and the fact that I could add it to this list.

Oh, those are beautiful! What a pity that reprints so often fail to include them.

For another project, I recently dipped into The Art of American Book Covers, and saw several titles that would surely qualify for this list.
I don't own them, but I'd like to...

And I'm using the term "romance" in the older sense, meaning adventure in some cases.

Ambulancing on the French Front
Two Thousand Miles on an Automobile
The Black Motor Car by Harris Burland
a whole series called The Automobile Girls
non-fiction, New England Highways and Byways from a Motor Car
and possibly The Open Road.

oooo. The Black Motor Car is in the supernatural fiction genre. The car is haunted.

Cleaning my shelves, I found another motoring romance. And it's so rare, I'm the only owner just now.

The Watermead Affair was written by Robert Barr, who is better known for his mysteries, but he also was great friends with Jerome K. Jerome and co-founded The Idler, and wrote spoofs of Sherlock Holmes stories. I'm looking forward to reading it this weekend.

First lines

"John Trumble, seventh Earl of Watermead, was notoriously the best driver of a motor in London. The police admitted that, even when giving testimony against him.
Watermead Manor is not much more than sixty miles from London, but when the young man did the distance from his park gates to the Marble Arch in fifty-six minutes on his new Brusier-Grolier, a machine which, to the eternal glory of France, had won the Gordon-Bennett Cup that year, the bench of magistrates universally agreed that his lordship had not only gone too far, but too fast."

Just Googled speed of cars in 1900 and found this:
"Top speed for new cars is 8 mph. Gasoline fuel efficiency is 35 mpg"

I found that the Brusier-Grolier make is fictional, but it led me to Volume 28 of the Idler, and the sub-title of the story is "The Story of a Chauffeur-Errant."

http://books.google.com/books?id=wKVMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA454&lpg=PA454&dq=...

Those opening lines are wonderful!

there's a short story about a massive traffic jam outside paris which I believe might have given rise to a horrible jean-luc godard film called 'Weekend'. the story is that the cars are delayed so long, that people start sharing food and drink and sleeping together ..and then when its over..everyone goes on their way

can't remember title!

another famous (mystery) story
two friends on a road trip across the midwest, are sitting in a truck stop diner, eating. a man enters, drenched with rain. sits down and orders coffee, mentions casually that he's glad to get it because he just walked nine miles in pouring rain.

the two chums ponder this. a nine-mile walk down the side of a highway? by a process of logical deduction they realize he must have just murdered someone. its neat.

>12 Dzerzhinsky:
Try to remember!

That reminded me of a childrens' picture book I read so so long ago, and would love to find a copy to own.
The Ultimate Auto was one car too many, and caused an epic traffic jam. The authorities had to find the linch-pin auto and remove it before the jam could be unstuck. The mayor of the city walked around with red tape trailing out of his pockets.

It was in a Norton Anthology of World Literature, I believe.
The second one I mentioned was written by Harry Kemelman, author of the Rabbi books. Its called, 'The Nine Mile Walk'

Found The Motor Girls Through New England out in my garage.

It's pretty bad literature.

>15 2wonderY: I do not recommend any of the Motor Girls, Outdoor Girls, Ruth Fielding, Moving Picture Girls, or similar, as anything but a snapshot of the time period. Or any of the similar series marketed to boys: The Motor Boys, Rover Boys, Tom Swift, etc.

I am always disappointed by this when I attempt, actually, to read the books. The plots sound very interesting and the writing is . . . abysmal, usually.

I take exception to Tom Swift, Diana. I remember those quite fondly. S'truth about the others.

Roy Trevor wrote a series of travel books in the teens. He appears to have written them in the style of novels, but the illustrations are photographs of the trips.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DHQnAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1177&lpg=PA1177&d...

I've added his En Route to my Wishlist.

>14 Dzerzhinsky:

Thank you for the reference for The Nine Mile Walk - I had never read it and found it quite delightful.

While discussing Toad's fascination with motor cars, Annie Gauger, in The Annotated Wind in the Willows talks about several books that Kenneth Grahame may have been familiar with.
In Chapter 6, when they divest him of his motor-clothes, “Now that he was merely Toad, and no longer the Terror of the Highway…” Gaugier first references The Motor Pirate by G. Sidney Paternoster, which she classifies as an automotive mystery novel. The Motor Pirate terrorizes the Berkshire countryside, robbing other motorists and shooting at them from his astonishingly fast boat-shaped car.
Further motoring titles she mentions are The Cruise of the Conqueror, Being the Further Adventures of the Motor Pilot (possibly a typo here?) and The Lady of the Blue Motor.
Also The Master Criminal, later republished as The Hand of the Spoiler, all apparently by Paternoster.

lyzard, I see you have one of his books listed. Wishlist or read?

And adding the Motor Pirate series, I found The Motor Maids 6 book set by Katherine Stokes and the much longer series Motor Boys by Clarence Young, a Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name.

Also Motor Rangers by Marvin West.

While doing some work on C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson today, I stumbled upon the fact that Doubleday named several of their books Motor Travel Library. I've created the series HERE.

I'm not sure I got them all, it's not an easy research.

I see I failed to list The Motor Maid in this thread.

Ha ha! Found another Gutenburg title, My Friend the Chauffeur and will be downloading it!

Here's the link!

A first page quote:
"Why is it that so many bad words begin with D or H? One almost gets to think that they are letters for respectable people to avoid."

The month is going so well, I decided to reward myself with a motoring romance.
I just ordered The Lightning Conductor Discovers America. **Bounce, bounce!**

I also found the gutenberg edition and put the link in the book description.

Here's the frontispiece:



and a great first page, with the lines:

"And we have on board a man who's been torpedoed twice. I hope he isn't the kind to whom everything happens in threes."

Today while shopping at the Book Garden in Cream Ridge, N.J., I came across a 1906 novel that probably fits the category: A Motor Car Divorce, by Louise Closser Hale (no touchstone for the novel because no one on LT has cataloged it).

I did find that it has been scanned and is available online. Here's the link to it at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/amotorcardivorc00compgoog

*Edited to fix the title of the book. Thanks, Ruth!

>25 harrygbutler: Gee, you're swell! I just added it. But you meant Divorce, not Romance, eh?

I'm researching the author, and it seems she (with her husband) wrote several other travel books.

It'll take 24 hours before a touchstone will work. Wrong.

A Motor Car Divorce

>26 2wonderY: I did mean "Divorce," and I've now edited my post to fix the title. Thanks!

I also just realized that I have another title to contribute: The Car and the Lady, by Grace S. Mason and Percy F. Megargel. My copy even includes a map pocket, so it must have been the "Automobile Edition": https://books.google.com/books?id=p1IDAAAAYAAJ&dq=the%20car%20and%20the%20la...

Don't forget to tag these books 'motoring romance'

>29 2wonderY: Will do!

For the rest of you -

I've downloaded A Motor Car Divorce and I am enjoying it immensely. It's written in first person narrative, and reminds me of the charming The Melting of Molly. This main character is more clueless. Her attachment to faddish ideas and her expression of them is very funny. I'd also compare it to the best of the Williamsons' books.

Just added The Devil's Motor by Marie Corelli.

I'll let you read about it here: http://www.rookebooks.com/product?prod_id=28433

Fascinating! I added the online edition link under the book description.

Have you read Kipling's They? A motor car is important in it, but I'm not sure whether it would count as a motoring story. A link to an online version: https://books.google.com/books?id=LtgZAQAAMAAJ.

Nice! No, I hadn't known about it. And I do love Kipling.

The story can be found in Traffics and Discoveries as well. I really enjoy Kipling as well. I'm trying (very gradually) to swap out other copies and build a uniform set of the Doubleday editions with the boat on the cover, like this:

>31 2wonderY: Like The Melting of Molly - ooh, must read! I love Molly! And I have enjoyed the Williamsons too.

>32 2wonderY: While researching something else this morning, I read a bit more about the original edition of Corelli's The Devil's Motor.

"the book was designed to smell of oil or smoke and the paper has been toned to simulate smoke darkening or slight fire damage. The text is printed in a calligraphic font."

Now lusting after it.

(prices start at $75 and go up to $500)

I stumbled upon an old non-fiction that ties in with the theme here. Bellamy Partridge wrote a series of memoirs in the first half of the 20th century, and also wrote on a variety of subjects that caught his fancy.

Fill ‘er Up! chronicles motoring in that timespan. Published in 1952, it is primarily US-centric. There is a lot of meat here. He briefs us on the development of the first vehicles and then jumps right into the crosscountry races; spending lots of time there. One chapter talks about social reactions in “Get a horse!”

He devotes space to auto shows and associations. He touches on roads and highways construction and the phenomenon of motor touring. He gives a chapter to how World War 2 affected motoring practices. And then he tries to imagine the future.

The best part of the book for me was the photo plates. Lots of documentation of the hardships (MUD!) and the material importance of the motoring associations.

There is a mention or two on motorcycles as well.

One photo documents the first woman driver participating in the 1905 Glidden Race; she drove off the side of a bridge! No injuries; but lots of commentary at the time, I’m sure.

Oh, and his fourth memoir is titled Excuse My Dust. (fixed touchstone)

I found an original copy of The Lady of the Blue Motor, written by the author of The Motor Pirate. I’m nearly half through. It’s not great literature, and I might even be tempted to call it slightly tiresome. But it’s a ‘motoring romance!’ So I will read on. Mysterious beautiful woman asks for assistance escaping a menacing foe, but refuses any explanation. There is a nighttime trip across France and an open motorboat ride across the channel and an abrupt parting. And a snake ring given as a token. The ring has it’s own story, of course. More to come...

Under strict orders, I am posting my thoughts on Roads to Roam by Hoffman Birney here. It isn't a romance as in the sense of a love story, but perhaps in the sense of adventure? A memoir of his travels through the southwest states in America and published in 1930.


I think this would be an even better read if I had actually been to the places. The first few chapters read like a travel brochure with no personal experiences of his trip whatsoever, but the chapter on Havasu canyon is more interesting. Especially when I have my tablet nearby to look up images of places he is describing.

Bumped across this essay recently written for the NYT about early US motoring, from a military and political perspective. Author is Brian C. Black.

The Most Important Road Trip in American History

In 1919, Dwight Eisenhower(then a 28 year old lieutenant colonel) set off to examine the state of America’s roads — and showed that cars were the future.

On the morning of July 7, 1919, Dwight Eisenhower, at the time a 28-year-old lieutenant colonel in the Army, set out on a drive across the country. For the American military, World War I had illustrated the importance of being able to move large amounts of troops and equipment quickly over long distances, and Eisenhower’s mission was to evaluate whether the country’s emerging network of paved roadways could handle the task.

It was an experience Eisenhower would never forget. “The old convoy had started me thinking about good, two-lane highways,” he later wrote. “This was one of the things that I felt deeply about, and I made a personal and absolute decision to see that the nation would benefit by it.” Decades later, as president, he drew on that experience to push through the Interstate Highway Act of 1956. Eisenhower’s trip, though largely forgotten today, was in fact an important chapter in the history of American infrastructure — and, by helping make automobile travel the fastest and easiest way to move around the country, the history of American culture itself.

Eisenhower had spent World War I at various domestic assignments; he was preparing to ship to Europe when the war ended. Eager for adventure, he jumped at the opportunity to join the Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train, which was announced in the spring of 1919. The plan was to send a convoy of 80 or so trucks and other military vehicles along the most famous road of the day, the Lincoln Highway, which ran between New York City and San Francisco.

Eisenhower was well prepared for the task. One of the convoy’s vehicles was a new innovation, a tank, and Eisenhower had played an important role in figuring out how to use it on the battlefield. Now, during peacetime, he and a friend, Maj. Sereno Brett, were assigned to oversee its operation. Although they missed the opening ceremony at the White House on July 9, the two young soldiers joined the convoy in Frederick, Md., later that day. From there the convoy proceeded to Gettysburg, Pa., to get on the Lincoln Highway.

The imperative of winning World War I had compelled the Allies to thrust unproven technologies into action with scant preparation. At the heart of many of these technologies, like the tank, was a new source of power, petroleum. Beginning at the turn of the century, oil wells in Texas flooded the market with hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude and left the industry searching for ways to put it to use.

Reading these trends, innovators, including Henry Ford, worked to perfect the internal combustion engine. It was one of the many competitors trying to replace humans’ reliance on animal power, but the ubiquity of cheap petroleum made it an easy choice. It took years, however, to make the internal combustion engine reliable and safe; early automobiles had a tendency to explode. And the mass adoption of cars required a unique infrastructure, ranging from filling stations and gas pumps to stronger, wider roads and bridges.

In fact, early on, electric batteries showed the most promise for personal transportation, particularly in urban areas. Although Henry Ford’s cheap, reliable Model T made the personal automobile universally available after 1907, in 1912 Ford and Thomas Edison released an electric version that Ford believed would define American transportation. He might have been right — were it not for World War I and Eisenhower’s convoy.

Electric batteries had no place on the battlefield. In fact, the war began on a landscape from the 19th century: Oxen and horses pulled wagons, and pigeons carried handwritten messages. New technologies needed to be self-sufficient and easy to maintain if they were to be released directly onto the battlefield. So by the end of the war, the internal combustion engine, increasingly reliable and powered by cheap gasoline, was everywhere, in trucks, tanks and all manner of stationary devices.

Searching for domestic applications for these technologies, the Army wanted to know whether motor vehicles could stand a trip across the country. The convoy was an experiment — but also an advertisement. Here were the new technologies that helped win the war; now they were going to revolutionize American transportation. To do that, though, they needed public support, and especially tax dollars, to build a new infrastructure.

Most communities along Eisenhower’s route hosted banquets and ceremonies that celebrated the soldiers in the convoy and their own local veterans. They listened to speeches about the need for roads and infrastructure to support the new technology.

But it was not easy going. Scouts on Harley-Davidson and Indian motorcycles sped a half-hour ahead to inspect road conditions and paint arrows to guide the other vehicles. Slippery sand and quicksand outside North Platte, Neb., engulfed 25 trucks, and in Utah many were stuck once again in massive sand drifts in the desert. Pavement in California allowed the convoy to return to its top speed of 10 miles per hour. The novelty of such travel nevertheless compelled amazed participants to record their progress. Reporting from Bedford, Pa., one noted: “Roads very good. Made 57 miles in 11⅓ hours.”

The convoy reached San Francisco on Sept. 5, 1919, 62 days after leaving Washington. It crossed San Francisco Bay on two ferries and concluded with a reception in Lincoln Park that included a “band concert and street dancing.”

Eisenhower’s report to Army leaders focused on details, mostly mechanical difficulties and the condition of the patchwork of existing roads. He reported a mix of paved and unpaved roads, old bridges and narrow passages. Narrow roads caused oncoming traffic to run off the road, and the convoy’s vehicles encountered added difficulty when re-entering the roadway. Some bridges were too low for trucks to pass under. Eisenhower singled out a western section of the Lincoln Highway as being so poor that it warranted a thorough investigation before the government spent any more money on it. The report leaves larger analysis aside, but it’s clear from his attention to detail that Eisenhower was already beginning to grasp the need for a radically different infrastructure — not an improvement on what was already in place.

Eisenhower’s lessons in infrastructure continued. In the 1930s he mapped the military value of French roads. During World War II he studied and experienced the revolutionary German roadways. “During World War II, I had seen the superlative system of German autobahn,” he wrote, the country’s “national highways crossing that country.” Largely by chance, his military service allowed him to develop a rare global expertise on civil engineering and how it could be used to guide national development.

>41 2wonderY: Wow. 62 days. I'm not sure that was much better time than the wagon teams made across the prairie! Although, I suppose they started out farther west than Washington D.C. Interesting post.

From 1910, I’m reading The Automobile Girls at Newport, part of a series.

Wealthy Ruth Stuart convinced her father to allow her an all female road trip with her Aunt Sallie and three other girls.

An astonishing attitude:
“Father says it takes skill and courage, as well as strength, to drive a car. I hope I’m not boasting; it’s only that father believes girls should attempt to do things as well as boys. Girls could do a lot more if they tried harder. ‘Sometimes,’ Dad says, ‘gumption counts for more than brute force.’”

Stopping by to add Excuse my Dust by Bellamy Partridge. I've only read the first chapter so far, but will report back when I know more.

In my head I keep calling it "Eat my Dust" which would be a more modern title and lacking the civility of times past.

>41 2wonderY: I don’t usually come here but glad I did. Thank you for posting this very interesting article. Certainly completely new to me. OK, I live in the UK but I wonder how many US citizens have heard about the drive.

>45 abbottthomas: Thanks for pointing back to it. It’s worth reading again.

Finished Excuse my Dust by Bellamy Partridge. A relaxed-paced story about the development of the automobile in the first few decades. It follows a small northeastern town and its residents, through those decades. Using the setting to disclose the history. Nicely done; I never thought I would read, let alone finish a book on automobiles. Snoooore. But the author involved me in the small town dramas and intrigues, especially in the story of the young inventor/mechanic. The humor is wholesome and gentle. Yes, there is a romantic interest, but you have to look hard and be patient to find it.

>47 MrsLee: Ha! Found a copy for myself. It’s been on my wishlist and you tipped me into do it mode.

>48 2wonderY: Terrific! I think you will enjoy it.

Earlier this year, I acquired my own copy of My Friend the Chauffeur, and I had started reading, but I’m not sure how far I got. So I’ve started from the beginning again and I’m enjoying it afresh.
I’ve recorded a few quotations in this group:
https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/6003/Book-Quotations

which really deserves more traffic.

Oh! Oh! They’ve stopped at the Certosa monastery. I had no idea!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certosa_di_Pavia

Beechy is speechless - “It was too beautiful to chatter about.”

But I think the Mrs. Williamson wrote the next few pages. They are poetic.

And their next stop is Milan; where they drive straight to the Duomo cathedral to view it in moonlight.

The POV has changed again. It start with Sir Ralph Moray. It switched a while ago to the youngest member of the group, Beechy, who is 17, but claiming to be 13, to aid her mother’s claim to youth.
Her mother, recently widowed and freed from an old-fashioned and despotic spouse, has bought an Austrian castle, sight unseen, for the Countess title that accompanies it. She has taken over the narrative and her new life revelations are keen.