London, 1900, 1st edition. 241 pp, 34 plates, ills, maps. TEG. Photos by Sella, etc. A magnificent book, the finest on any North American climb. This expeditions succeeded in the first ascent of St. Elias. In the original green cloth, light edge wear, moderately faded overall, but still handsome, Very Good condition. This has internal rubber stamps and perforation stamps from a library, but no spine marks and no pockets or bookplates. All copies of this book need binding repair as the original Gutta Percha glue that bound them has dried out in the last 100 years. his copy has been expertly and almost invisibly repaired, with he original endpapers but no outward appearance of repair.
Luigi Amedeo di Savoy, the Duke of Abruzzi [1873 - 1933] was born in Madrid to the then king of Spain also a Savoy, who abdicated his throne only a few weeks after his son's birth and returned to Italy. When he was six years old, young Luigi was assigned to the Italian Navy and received his entire education in military schools. A man of great energy and imagination, at the age of 24 he organised and led the expedition that made the first ascent of Mount St Elias [5,484 metres] in Alaska in 1897. Two years later he led an expedition to the North Pole which reached a latitude 86^34' north, a new record at the time. In 1906 he led the Rwenzori expedition which climbed all the major peaks and made the most extensive exploration of the range before or since. A few years later, in 1909, he organised an expedition to the Karakoram and set the record to the highest altitude yet achieved by ascending the second highest mountain in the world, K2, to a height of about 7,500 metres [24,600 feet], along the route that today bears his name, the Abruzzi ridge.
Vittorio Sella [1859 - 1943]
He was the Italian alpinist and photographer who accompanied the 1906 Abruzzi Rwenzori expedition and who was perhaps the greatest of all alpine photographers. It was Sella who first recorded the landscape, plants and people of the Rwenzori in extensive and intimate detail, and to whom we refer for clarity of the historical record and pure artistic beauty. It is particularly interesting to note how far the glaciers of the Rwenzori have receded since these photographs were taken, nearly 90 years ago. Vittorio Sella was born in Biella, Italy, to father who was a successful textile industrialist and scientist ad who, in 1856, had been the first Italian to write a treatise on photography. Vittorio owed his interest in the mountains to his uncle, Quintino, founder of the Alpine Club of Italy. As a young man, Vittorio had worked as a chemist in his father's textile factory, but it was his passion for taking beautiful panoramic photographs of the mountains which made him famous.
