London, Adam and Charles Black, 1904, 1st edition. 294 pp, 70 color plates by A.D. McCormick with captioned tissue protectors. This copy of one of Martin Conway's most popular titles was rebound in leather and given as a School Prize at the Oxford Diocesan Training College, Culham, which closed in 2017. As was the practice at the time for books given as academic prizes, the book was given marbled endpapers, and the pages edges were also marbled. The new covers are a handsome red leather, with gold decorations on all surfaces, especially the spine. A school crest was embossed in gold on the cover, and a plate similar to a bookplate affixed inside the cover telling us that Evelyn F. Braley earned the 1st General Prize on 27th June, 1906. The spine had faded somewhat, but otherwise the book is in Very Fine condition.
Books chosen for use as students prizes were chosen for their suitability as a beautiful book, and a book of heft. Content or literary values were secondary. As they are universally beautiful and look valuable, many of them have survived and are treasured now as examples of bookbinding art.
I (Michael Chessler) have always collected similar school prize books, plus all books with handsome leather bindings, and am parting with this one from my personal collection. To find a 105 year old book in this nice a condition means that previous owners had taken loving car of it for their entire adult lives. We have owned this book for over twenty-five years and know the feeling of satisfaction that comes with owning such a aesthetic book for most of my adult life.
Sir Martin Conway, who combines an almost unrivaled mountaineering record with the gift of acute observation and a pure and delicate style, has written a book that explores what mountains mean to those who love them. For the lay reader there is ample entertainment in the many admirable descriptive passages, illustrated, as they are, by Mr. McCormick's pictures. The coloring of the Alps, both in the low levels and in the great snowfields, is often exquisitely simple.
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