A wonderful book of balloon travel tracing the rise of "Balloonomania", the huge fad in hot air balloons that originated in France in the late 18th century and continued into the 19th century, during the advent of hot air balloon flights. The interest began with the first flights of the Montgolfier brothers in 1783, and quickly spread in France and across the channel in England. (Read more at Wikipedia). Wikicommons has a collection of the amazing illustrations in the book here.