Chessler Books
Rock Climbing - Mountaineering - Exploration
New - Used - Collectible - Signed
Chessler Books Accepts PAYPAL Chessler Books Accepts VISA Chessler Books Accepts MASTERCARD Chessler Books Accepts DISCOVER CARD Chessler Books Accepts AMERICAN EXPRESS
All Orders Shipped via United States Postal Service   Chessler Books Ships Via USPS
Author:
Title:
Keyword:
Item #:
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M Mc N O P Q
R S T U V W X Y Z
Item #: OP666A-8774
FIRST ON EVEREST: [THE MYSTERY OF MALLORY & IRVINE] Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld 1986 1st US ed Hardcover DJ Near Fine-Fine Multiple Copies Available
By Holzel, Tom and Audrey Salkeld
Price: $4.99

List Price: $25.00
You Save $20.01 (80%)



Add to wish list


Detailed Product Description

New York, 1986, 1st US edition or 1st or 2nd printing. 322 pp, 35 b/w photos, bibliography, index. Hardcover with dust jacket. Near Fine to Fine condition. 

For more than sixty years - since George Mallory and Andrew Irvine were last seen only eight hundred vertical feet from the summit of Everest - mystery and controversy have surrounded their tragic 1924 ascent. Did Mallory, the expedition leader and hero of the Bloomsbury set, reach the highest point on the earth almost thirty years before Sir Edmund Hillary's historic climb? In this dramatic re-creation of the epic adventure, Tom Holzel, an American mountaineer, and Audrey Salkeld, Britain's leading mountaineering historian, offer new revelations and persuasive theories that challenge the history of mountain climbing. Beyond the historic climb is the compelling story of Mallory himself; intimate of Rupert Brooke and Lytton Strachey, and the man whose romantic vision fired the imagination of an earlier generation, he was destined to follow the poetic ideal in life and in death.

Holzel's name is mud among the British Climbing establishment, ever since he managed to corral a genuine Everest historian - his co-author Audrey Salkeld - and write this book. Actually, it was mud long before. In the early '70s, this American businessman and amateur climber had the audacity to spring a theory on the British public that one of their greatest heroes - George Mallory - might have succeeded, rather than failed to have climbed Mt. Everest in 1924.

The British Climbing Establishment, a number of who knew and revered Mallory, were outraged. Had this foreign interloper no sense of history, no shame? The statement that proved his total lack of knowledge of this epic saga, the critics patiently explained to the media, was his claim that proof could still be found on the body of one of the climbers - he said it would be Irvine - who should still be found on a snow terrace on Mt. Everest at 8200m. If somebody would only go and look, the camera Irvine was carrying would hold pictures of the fatal climb, perhaps even showing a photo from the summit.

The clamor rose a few decibels more when in 1980 Holzel reported to the NY Times that the body of 'an English dead' had indeed been found on Everest's North Face at 8100m by a Chinese porter who--get this--died the day after reporting his find. Another 'Everest Ghost' the British public exclaimed. 'How convenient' the establishment elders muttered. In 1986, Holzel and Salkeld mounted an expedition to the north side of Everest to search for the body at 8200m. They failed in all respects save one. On literally the last day of their three-month expedition, Holzel managed to meet with the tent-mate of the person who claimed to have found the English dead. This claim had been strenuously denied by the Chinese Mountaineering Association, and other government officials. But the tent-mate admitted that Wang Hung-Bao had said he had indeed found 'a foreign mountaineer.'

This classic book contains two exciting stories: First there is the story of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine who were last spotted seemingly a few hours below the summit of the world's highest peak, which raised the glorious possibility that they had perhaps reached the summit before perishing on the descent. Salkeld in particular has tracked down and discovered a trove of unpublished letters, and theirs is the first modern reading of Mallory the man, a reading much necessitated in view of the previous biographies, many of which verge on hagiography. And there is the second story, equally fascinating, of the authors' heroic efforts to find out what did happen. It is this story, a modern tale, that shows how large a role is played by luck when the ambition is there to pave its path.

There are now a slew of new books on this stirring subject-most based on the Simonson Expedition of 1999 which discovered the body--not of Irvine--but of George Mallory himself, and--astonishingly--discovered it exactly where Holzel had predicted nearly 30 years earlier. The Simonson book 'Ghosts of Everest' is also required reading for anyone interested in this famous saga. What I found the most interesting in The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine was the acuity of their theorizing and their genius at selecting certain facts from amidst a welter of conflicting data, facts that seemed strange selections at first but which then turn out, 10 or 20 years later, to have been exactly correct. Holzel's ideas about who Wang found (Mallory and not Irvine) once again go against the current wisdom; but his description of the deductive reasoning by which he arrived at his latest conclusions are alone worth the price of the book. As for the rest of it, well, it was an instant classic when it came out in 1985.


Other Items You Might Like

  • Similar Items Available
  • Items From This Author
  • Items From This Category
LAST CLIMB: THE LEGENDARY EVEREST EXPEDITIONS OF GEORGE MALLORY Audrey Salkeld and David Breashears 1999 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available [Not Signed]
By: Salkeld, Audrey and David Breashears
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $35.00, You Save $25.01 (71%)
- Item # BK635-86011p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
LAST CLIMB: THE LEGENDARY EVEREST EXPEDITIONS OF GEORGE MALLORY LIMITED EDITION Audrey Salkeld and David Breashears 1999 1st ed Hardcover Limited Ed
By: Salkeld, Audrey and David Breashears
Price $39.99 ~ Regular $65.00, You Save $25.01 (38%)
- Item # BK635-860p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE MYSTERY OF MALLORY & IRVINE Holzel and Salkeld 1999 Softcover Fine
By: Holzel, Tom and Audrey Salkeld
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $18.95, You Save $13.96 (74%)
- Item # BK666C-953
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
BIS ZUR SPITZE DES MOUNT EVEREST [TO THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST "THE FIGHT FOR EVEREST 1924"] E.F. Norton 1926 1st Swiss ed Hardcover Fine
By: Norton, E.F.
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $100.00, You Save $90.01 (90%)
- Item # OP63G-830
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE MYSTERY OF MALLORY AND IRVINE Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld 1986 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Holzel, Tom and Audrey Salkeld
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $15.01 (75%)
- Item # OP666B-8864
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
ALPINE JOURNAL 100s OF INDIVIDUAL ISSUES LISTED HERE! PAPERBACK, WRAPPERS or HARDCOVER ISSUES 1863-1986
By: Alpine Club UK
Price $10.00
- Item # JR207B
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
GHOSTS OF EVEREST: THE SEARCH FOR MALLORY AND IRVINE Jochen Hemmleb Eric Simonson 1999 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Eric Simonson
By: Hemmleb, Jochen, Eric Simonson, Larry Johnson
Price $29.99
- Item # BK629D-832p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
GHOSTS OF EVEREST: THE SEARCH FOR MALLORY AND IRVINE Jochen Hemmleb Eric Simonson 1999 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Eric Simonson
By: Hemmleb, Jochen, Eric Simonson, Larry Johnson
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $29.95, You Save $19.96 (67%)
- Item # BK629D-832p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
BOSWELL, THE BIOGRAPHER George Mallory 1912 1st UK ed Hardcover Near Fine to Fine 2 copies available
By: Mallory, George
Price $125.00
- Item # OP593B-8832
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
GHOSTS OF EVEREST: THE AUTHORIZED STORY OF THE SEARCH FOR MALLORY & IRVINE Hemmleb and Simonson 1999 Hardcover 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Jochen Hemmleb and Dave Hahn [Rainier Guide]
By: Hemmleb, Jochen, Eric Simonson, Larry Johnson
Price $59.99 ~ Regular $120.00, You Save $60.01 (50%)
- Item # BK629-881A
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE MYSTERY OF MALLORY & IRVINE Holzel and Salkeld 1999 Softcover Fine
By: Holzel, Tom and Audrey Salkeld
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $18.95, You Save $13.96 (74%)
- Item # BK666C-953
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE MYSTERY OF MALLORY AND IRVINE Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld 1986 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Holzel, Tom and Audrey Salkeld
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $15.01 (75%)
- Item # OP666B-8864
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
NORTH TO THE POLE Will Steger with Paul Schurke 1987 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Steger, Will with Paul Schurke
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $35.00, You Save $30.01 (86%)
- Item # PL268-9603
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
DERNIERS REFUGES: ATLAS DES RESERVES NATURELLES DANS LE MONDE [ LAST REFUGES: ATLAS OF THE RESERVES IN THE WORLD] Roger Heim 1956
By: Heim, Roger (Preface by)
Price $9.99
- Item # OP5399-935
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
VIER IM HIMALAYA: ERLEBNISBERICHT DER DEUTSCHEN NEPAL EXPEDITION 1955 [ANNAPURNA IV FIRST ASCENT: FOUR IN HIMALAYA: EXPERIENCE REPORT OF THE GERMAN NEPAL EXPEDITION 1955] Heinz Steinmetz 1957 1st ed Hardcover DJ Near Fine
By: Steinmetz, Heinz
Price $39.99 ~ Regular $50.00, You Save $10.01 (20%)
- Item # OP3721-952
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE NEXT HORIZON: AUTOBIOGRAPHY II Chris Bonington 1990 Paperback
By: Bonington, Chris
Price $4.99
- Item # OP283-864
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 1934 August Manless Alpine Climbing Miriam Underhill VG
By: National Geographic Magazine 1934 August Underhill, Miriam
Price $45.00
- Item # NG3408-872
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
TALES OF EARLY LEADVILLE PART THREE Rene L. Coquoz 1976 Softcover Fine
By: Coquoz, Rene L.
Price $7.99 ~ Regular $10.00, You Save $2.01 (20%)
- Item # GB5629A-942
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SCARIEST PLACE ON EARTH: EYE TO EYE WITH HURRICANES David Fisher 1994 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Fisher, David
Price $44.99
- Item # BK465-943
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MAN OF EVEREST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF TENZING Tenzing and Ullman 1956 Paperback VG-Fine,
By: Norgay, Tenzing & James R. Ullman
Price $4.99 ~ Regular $30.00, You Save $25.01 (83%)
- Item # OP156E-864
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THAT UNTRAVELLED WORLD. Eric Shipton 1st UK edition DJ SIGNED by Eric Shipton
By: Shipton, Eric.
Price $590.00
- Item # OP1054D-829
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MOUNT McKINLEY: THE CONQUEST OF DENALI 1991 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED & inscribed by Bradford Washburn and David Roberts + 2 TLS letters from Brad and David
By: Washburn, Bradford and David Roberts
Price $375.00
- Item # BK1645F-829p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart