From Jules Verne`s Around the World in Eighty Days, the ambition to make round-the-world trips was born. The first man to do this in a motor car was Charles Glidden. Along with Charles Thomas, a Sussex engineer, the millionaire took a Napier car twice around the world to visit places that hadn`t conceived such an invention. Their journey took them from Boston to Austria, where they cruised 10 miles due to a frozen petrol tank and were promptly arrested, the Arctic Circle, the Far East and more. They encountered a variety of attitudes and people on their travels: the last cannibal of Fiji, anti-Western sentiments in Japan. Here Andrew Jepson uses his grandfather Thomas` photographs to create a fascinating story of the ground-breaking journey. Perhaps it wasn`t done in eighty days, but this is certainly a must read for all motoring enthusiasts.