Maybe there would have been an opportunity for a three-wheel recumbent bike to be developed first? Seems like a lot of easier engineering if you can take stability as a given and just worry about the driver supplying direction and power.
Eh, doesn't work well with the factors that led to the penny-farthing.
The penny-farthing was a direct drive on the front wheel - no chain. It had you positioned on top of the wheel to get as much traction as possible.
A primitive recumbent trike would tend towards the same design, like a child's trike, with no chain and a direct drive on the front wheel.
And because you'd get terrible traction, with so little weight, you'd be dead in the water until the machining was available to engineer a chain system to connect pedals in front of the cyclist with wheels underneath. I don't think there's any penny-and-two-farthings intermediate to make the recumbent trike work before that.
