HOW I LEARNED TO RIDE THE BICYCLE:...

HOW I LEARNED TO RIDE THE BICYCLE: by Frances Willard (Fair Oaks Publishing Co.: $14.95, cloth; $8.95, paper; 104 pp.). In 1893, 53-year-old Frances Willard, longtime president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and a leader of the women’s social-reform movement, decided it was high time she learned to ride a bicycle. But, as she notes in this charming and disarming memoir, she soon discovered that her machine, which she dubbed Gladys, was “ ‘mettlesome’ in the fullest sense of the word . . . if you give it an inch--nay, a hair--it will take a yard . . . and you a contusion, or, like enough, a perforated kneecap.” However, once having determined that “she who succeeds in gaining the mastery of such an animal as Gladys will gain the mastery of life, and by exactly the same methods and characteristics,” Willard subdues her steed and pedals off into the sunset.