BARZINI, Luigi. Pekin To Paris. An Account of Prince Borghese's Journey across two Continents in a Motor-Car. London: Grant and Richards. 1907.
8vo. Original colourful pictorial cloth, top edge gilt; pp. 645, highly illustrated with plates after the author's photographs, folding colour-printed map at rear, minor rubbing to extremities, occasional foxing to text, a good copy in the decorative original binding.
First edition in English, very rare. In the summer of 1907 the Italian journalist accompanied Prince Scipione Borghese who won the famous Peking to Paris motor race, after a journey of two months in an Itala car across China and Siberia, traveling amongst regions and people that had never seen a car before. The 1907 Itala (45HP) is now one of the main attractions of the Museo dell'Automobile in Turin, and a replica was palced in a pedestrianized historical street in Kirov, Russia. Founded by the Ceirano brothers in Turin in 1904 the automobile manufacturer Itala marks the founding of the Italian car industry, including FIAT.
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