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 #: OP64A-8542
THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE W.F. Bowman 1956 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine 2 copies available
By Bowman, W.F.
Price: $125.00

List Price: $350.00
You Save $225.00 (64%)



Add to wish list


Detailed Product Description

London, 1956, 1st UK edition. 141 pp, 16 ills. Hardcover is fine and bright and dust jacket is also fine. Very clean Dust Jacket, corner clipped. The best copy we've seen in several years. 

The Ascent of Rum Doodle is a droll spoof of expedition climbing. First published in 1956, The Ascent of Rum Doodle quickly became established as a mountaineering classic. As an outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a 40,000-and-a-half-foot peak, many thought it was inspired by the 1953 conquest of Everest. But Bowman had drawn on the flavor and tone of earlier adventures, of Bill Tilman and his 1937 account of the Nanda Devi expedition. The book's central and unforgettable character, Binder, is one of the finest creations in comic literature.

Bowman mercilessly rips the piss out of Old School mountaineering expeditions in a spoof expedition book. The starchy, formulaic style of pre-1960s expedition books is hijacked by Bowman to tell a preposterous story of death-or-glory conquest. It involves a 40,000-ft mountain, Yogistan and its revolting inhabitants, Pong the terrible cook, plus the heroic details behind The Men Who Would Go High - and their fiancées.

With The Ascent of Rum Doodle, Bowman achieved the near-impossible: a very funny fictional climbing book. The sport has not lent itself terribly well to parody or satire, it's really too much of a specialist pastime to be able to generate mirth amongst a wider public, and too many knowledgeable practitioners have taken themselves and the sport far too seriously to readily indulge in self-deprecation.

However, Bowman exploited this very flaw to produce an absolute comic classic. He adopted the pompous and pretentious tone exhibited in much British mountaineering writing up to the 1960s, and uses it to splendidly mirthful effect to relate the story of the assault on ''Nature's last citadel against the conquering spirit of man. The 40,000- ft. Rum Doodle, standing like a goddess, defying those who would set sacrilegious feet on her unsullied shrine.''

By doing so he parodied to perfection the stuffy British expedition book so prevalent of the pre- and immediate post-war period. There was plenty of material for Bowman to draw on, the anal-retentive style was almost generic in most mountaineering texts of the time (with the honorable exception of Tilman & Shipton's fine tomes) but it is clear that Ralph Barker's The Last Blue Mountain, and above all, John Hunt's ghastly The Ascent of Everest, must have been key turgid texts which inspired Doodle.

The really amazing thing about Doodle is how many of the fictional events depicted seem to crop up on real expeditions. Characters like 'Pong' the awful 'Yogistani' cook (who makes everything taste of burnt rubber), eccentric climbers and recalcitrant porters, are all too familiar to anyone who has ventured on a climbing trip to the Greater Ranges.

This apparent insider knowledge led many to assume that 'W.E. Bowman' was in fact the pen-name of W.H. Tilman, whose normally ascerbic and dry-witted delivery make his climbing and sailing books such a delight in contrast to that of most of his peers.

Visit the Rum Doodle Website:

http://www.rumdoodle.org.uk/   This site is worth visiting just to see the covers of the book in other languages.

Of course Wikipedia has a delightful, and fact filled, entry on the book and its place in the climbing universe.

*unpc 

I saw these initials on another bookseller's website, and I could not figure out what it meant. So I emailed him and he replied, ''UN-Price Clipped''

I told him I thought it stood for the Uganda National Pipeline Company. That's what Wikipedia brings up.



Other Items You Might Like

  • Similar Items Available
  • Items From This Author
  • Items From This Category
THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE W.F. Bowman 1956 1st US ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Bowman, W.F.
Price $55.00 ~ Regular $125.00, You Save $70.00 (56%)
- Item # OP64B-882
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE & THE CRUISE OF THE TALKING FISH W.E.Bowman Paperback 1992
By: Bowman, W.E.
Price $39.95
- Item # OP2260-839p
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
SUMMIT MAGAZINE USA BACK ISSUES 1960s: This List is of Available Issues betyween 1960-1969
By: Summit Magazine
Price $10.00 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $10.00 (50%)
- Item # JR154J-868
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MAZAMA BULLETIN Individual Back Issues 1905 - 1975 New issues recently added
By: Mazama Bulletin
Price $5.00
- Item # JR225-127
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE CLIMBING ART MAGAZINE Individual Back Issues Numbers 1 to 31
By: Climbing Art Magazine, Pat Ament
Price $10.00
- Item # JR156-869
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SUMMIT MAGAZINE USA BACK ISSUES 1990s: 1990-1995 See This List of Available Issues
By: Summit Magazine
Price $10.00 ~ Regular $20.00, You Save $10.00 (50%)
- Item # JR154A-868
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
FIRST ASCENT OF MANASLU IN PHOTOGRAPHS 1952-56 Yoshinori Yoda Japan 1956 1st ed Slipcase Like New RARE FIRST ASCENT OF AN 8000M PEAK, IN ENGLISH! Multiple Copies Available
By: Yoda, Yoshinori, Mainichi Newspapersn 1956
Price $125.00 ~ Regular $400.00, You Save $275.00 (69%)
- Item # OP1251-8356p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
CLIMBER and CLIMBER AND RAMBLER MAGAZINE UK (Not a set) $5 per issue As available
By: Climber and Rambler Magazine
Price $5.00
- Item # JR251-121
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
EXPLORERS JOURNAL 1951-1993 As available (Not a set) $5 per issue
By: Explorers Club
Price $5.00
- Item # PL7737-958
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE W.F. Bowman 1956 1st US ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Bowman, W.F.
Price $55.00 ~ Regular $125.00, You Save $70.00 (56%)
- Item # OP64B-882
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE VAST UNKNOWN: AMERICA'S FIRST ASCENT OF EVEREST 2013 1st ed Hardcover DJ New SIGNED BY Broughton Coburn Multiple caopies available
By: Coburn, Broughton
Price $19.95 ~ Regular $49.95, You Save $30.00 (60%)
- Item # BK7146-8554
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE ASCENT OF EVEREST LIMITED EDITION 1993 40th anniversary ed. SIGNED by Ten Members of the Everest First Ascent Team Slipcase New
By: Hunt, John. Real Signatures Not Facsimiles
Price $3500.00 ~ Regular $4500.00, You Save $1000.00 (22%)
- Item # OP001K-835
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MANASLU 1954-56 FIRST ASCENT Japanese Alpine Club 1958 1st ed Hardcover DJ Fine
By: Japanese Alpine Club
Price $325.00 ~ Regular $950.00, You Save $625.00 (66%)
- Item # OP744C-859p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
SIR EDMUND HILLARY AND THE PEOPLE OF EVEREST Anne B. Keiser 2002 1st ed Hardcover DJ New SIGNED by Edmund Hillary as E.P. Hillary 2 copies available
By: Keiser, Anne and Cynthia Ramsay
Price $110.00 ~ Regular $250.00, You Save $140.00 (56%)
- Item # BK1828-8822p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
EVEREST: MOUNTAIN WITHOUT MERCY 1997 1st ed (Limited Edition) Faux Leather Hardcover Fine SIGNED by Broughton Coburn
By: Coburn, Broughton
Price $49.95 ~ Regular $75.00, You Save $25.05 (33%)
- Item # BK282-862p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MANASLU 1952-53 Japanese Alpine Club 1954 1st ed Hardcover Fine DJ Very Good+
By: Japanese Alpine Club
Price $175.00 ~ Regular $950.00, You Save $775.00 (82%)
- Item # OP743GAB-884
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
ON TOP OF THE WORLD: THE FIRST BRITISH WOMAN TO CLIMB EVEREST 1994 1st UK edition Hardcover SIGNED by Rebecca Stephens
By: Stephens, Rebecca
Price $75.00
- Item # BK1482A-855
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
THE WALL: A NEW DIMENSION IN CLIMBING Alexander and Thomas Huber 2001 1st ed Hardcover Fine Multiple Copies Available
By: Huber, Alexander and Thomas
Price $9.99 ~ Regular $30.00, You Save $20.01 (67%)
- Item # BK702-84418p
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
ANNAPURNA SOUTH FACE Chris Bonington 1971 1st UK ed Hardcover DJ Fine SIGNED by Chris Bonington
By: Bonington, Chris
Price $150.00
- Item # OP452D-845
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart
MOUNTAIN WORLD 1956/1957 Hardcover DJ Very Good-Fine
By: Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research
Price $19.95 ~ Regular $75.00, You Save $55.05 (73%)
- Item # MW1956-861
View Details
Add To Cart
Adding...
Added! Click To View Cart