Connecticut, Easton Press, 1999, 1st US edition. 310 pp, color and b/w photos. A special Limited Edition of the US edition, hardcover bound in full dark green leather with gilt design, all edges gilt, silk end papers, bound-in silk ribbon page marker. Gold cover design and spine letters. Book is in New condition.
SIGNED by the author as "E.P. Hillary." Also includes a Certificate of Authenticity issued by the Easton Press in 2002 that is Signed by E.P. Hillary, June Mulgrew (Mrs Edmund Hillary) and Roy Pfeil, the publisher.
Hillary writes "This is the story of my life, condensing 79 years of vigorous activity into a few hundred pages. My views may not always coincide with the stories of my companions, but this is the way I clearly saw things at the time."
On May 29th, 1953 Edmund Hillary, a 33-year-old beekeeper from New Zealand, and his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay stepped onto the summit of Mt. Everest and secured a place in the annals of world exploration. Prior to 1953, no one knew if it was even possible to climb this mountain and it had long been the "Holy Grail" of mountain climbers. In 1951, a possible route up the south slope had been discovered.
Hillary descended Everest to find that he had become a living legend. He then went on to become the world's greatest living explorer. His monumental achievements also include the first trans-Antarctic expedition to the South Pole. Truly a legend in his own time, Hillary first penned High Adventure.
In this official account of the climb, written and published within a few months of the climb, the team leader John Hunt describes the entire story. The chapter on the final summit climb is written by Edmund Hillary. It is the definitive and very entertaining memoir of his Himalayan quest. He describes in vivid detail the agonizing and perilous climb. This is a wonderful book to read and is also a very fine collector's book
Sir Edmund Hillary is the best known and most beloved climber of our time. Here is his complete autobiography, covering both his early climbs and later emergence as a world statesman.
Hillary looks back on that 1953 landmark expedition, as well as his remarkable explorations in other exotic locales, from the South Pole to the Ganges. View From The Summit is the compelling life story of a New Zealand country boy who daydreamed of wild adventures; the pioneering climber who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth after scaling the world's tallest peak; and the elder statesman and unlikely diplomat whose groundbreaking program of aid to Nepal continues to this day, paying his debt of worldwide fame to the Himalayan region. This was the last book Ed Hillary wrote.