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| The Dandy's Perambulations by Isaac Robert Cruickshank |
Perhaps I'm veering off topic here, but it just occurred to me why "Draisienne" two-wheelers were called "dandy-horses" — and it wasn't because they were cool, neat, spiffy or swell.
When I first encountered the above book of "caricature engravings" some months ago, I assumed that writer-illustrator Robert Cruickshank didn't know how to draw a proper bicycle. As it turns out, there were no "proper" bicycles to draw in 1819 — they hadn't been invented yet. Rather, he was drawing was what had become a fad among dandies (hipsters, macaronis, fops) who propelled these mounts, hither and fro, by running while seated. Indeed, the bike's inventor, the German Baron Karl von Drais, called his device the Laufmaschine, literally the "running machine". The publication date of Cruickshank's storybook is telling, as the dandy-horse craze peaked briefly in England and France, in the summer of 1819.
View this delightful document in its entirety here, and take heed when our protagonists are set upon by geese — 'tis a hazard not to be taken lightly.
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| Drasiennes R 4 kidz! |
