London, 1954, 1st edition, 4th printing. 300 pp, 48 plates. The book is an original hardcover with its original blue cloth binding, with an original dust jacket that is also in excellent condition, not chipped, torn or stained. We chose nice copies to get signed. The book and DJ are Near Fine. (Upon listing this book in December 2023 our scanner conked out, so we are showing a similar copy with fewer signatures which we sold in 2022.)
Starting in the 1990s we started having access to Edmund Hillary, and later Reinhold Messner, and eventually most of the world's great climbers. We started getting books signed by authors and well known climbers. Eventually, at events where we met them, we started passing the books around and we had them all sign Ascent of Everest. What these climbers have in common is not that they climbed Everest, although many had.
What these climbers have in common is that they had successful climbing careers. Most did notable first ascents, and people who are respected by the climbing community, and in many cases by the general public. It just made sense to use this book to have a lot of great climbers rubbing elbows with each other.
If you want to collect just one book signed by Ed Hillary, and other great climbers such as Reinhold Messner and Maurice Herzog, this is probably the one to have. This is the official account of the first ascent of Mount Everest; this is the first book written about the climb. Chapter 16 on the on final assault was written by Edmund Hillary. Almost all these climbers have entries in Wikipedia, which is now an accurate and thorough chronicle of mountaineering history.
This copy is SIGNED by 30 or more of these great climbers:
Conrad Anker: Top American Mountaineer and Rock Climber
Apa Sherpa: Sherpa, Climbed Everest 21 times.
Fred Beckey: Great American Mountaineer from 1930s - 2000s
Barry Blanchard: Canadian Climber, Rockies and Karakoram
Chris Bonington: British Climber led many Himalayan expeditions
Jim Bridwell: Top American Yosemite Climber
Tommy Caldwell: Top American rock climber, Yosemite, Fitzroy
Greg Child: Top Australian climber, Everest and K2
Kurt Diemberger: Austrian, 6 8000m peaks, first ascents of Dhaulagiri and Broad Peak
Phil Ershler: American, Everest North Face
Peter Habeler: Austrian, First Everest climb without oxygen bottles.
Heinrich Harrer: Austrian, Eiger first ascent, 7 Years in Tibet
Maurice Herzog: French, First 800m ascent, Annapurna in 1950
Edmund Hillary. New Zealand, Everest first ascent
Peter Hillary. New Zealand Himalayan, Karakoram, NZ climbs
Tom Hornbein: American, Everest West Ridge
Steve House: American High level & fast Alpine style climber
Layton Kor: American rock climbing pioneer, Desert SW, Yosemite, Colorado
Jeff Lowe: American Ice Climbing pioneer, Canada, Alps, Himalaya
Reinhold Messner: Italian, First to climb all 14 8000 meter peaks
Rick Rigdeway: First American to climb K2
Gerry Roach: American, Second to climb the 7 summits
Royal Robbins: American, Mister Yosemite
Doug Scott: British Himalayan climber
Stephen Venables: British, Everest Kangshung Face
Bradford Washburn: American Alaska first ascent froms the 1930s - 1950s
Jim Whittaker: First American to summit Everest
We personally obtained all these signatures in person over the past forty years. These books have crossed the country several times, and the Atlantic Ocean several times as well!
As for the 8000 meter peaks, after numerous attempts, on June 3, 1950 the first 8000 peak to be climbed was Annapurna. In only 14 years the other 13 were climbed, finishing with Shishapangma in 1964. Then Reinhold Messner climbed them all in 16 years.
For anybody who follows mountaineering, the prize had always been Mount Everest. Some of the world's best climbers had failed, which I personally cannot understand. Those boys in the 1930s and 1930s were fit!
Working class born Ed Hillary and Tenzing Norgay went to the Himalayas under the auspices of the British Empire, an outfit then recognizably in terminal decline. The expedition was the British Everest Expedition, 1953, and it was led by Colonel John Hunt, the truest of true English gentlemen.
But it turns out that not being born in the ''upper classes'' might actually be good for your climbing resume. It was proper to the historical moment that one of the two climbers immortalized by the event came from a remote former colony of the Crown and the other from a nation that had long served as a buffer state of the imperial Raj. Neither was a British citizen!
The British, who invented mountain climbing, who invented writing books about mountain climbing, who invented climbing the Himalayas, and who invented climbing Mount Everest, had to wait their turn until Doug Scott and Dougal Haston did it on September 24, 1975.
