The most important and the scarcest of the classic Jones-Abraham trilogy, rarely found in such nice condition.

 

With thirty full-page illustrations in monogravure, ten pen and ink sketches and eleven outline drawings of the chief routes. 93 courses (routes) are described. 14 routes in the easy listing, 38 routes in the Moderate List with the remainder either in the Difficult or Exceptionally Severe List.

 

The book is divided into two parts, Part 1, on the Carnedds, Tryfan and the Glyders was taken by George D Abraham; while Part 2, dealing with Snowdon and the climbs south of the Llanberis Pass, including Cader Idris, was written by Ashley P Abraham. Abraham, George Dixon (1871-1965), photographer and rock-climber, was born at Derwent Street, Keswick, Cumberland, on 7 October 1871, the eldest son of George Perry Abraham (1844-1923), photographer, and his wife, Mary, née Dixon. G. P. Abraham had moved from London to Keswick, where he established a very successful photographic business and was for fifteen years a councillor.

 

George Dixon Abraham was educated at Manchester grammar school and Manchester School of Art; his brother Ashley Perry Abraham (1876–1951), born at Derwent Terrace, Keswick, on 20 February 1876, went to Blackman's School. Both subsequently worked in their father's shop, helping to develop its worldwide reputation as the Lake District's leading supplier of photographs. When the Fell and Rock Club of the English Lake District was founded in 1906 Ashley Abraham was the first president.

 

Climbing in the Lake District was notably democratic, attracting many young men from the factories of industrial Lancashire to enjoy the challenge of the Lakeland crags. The Fell and Rock Club welcomed women into its ranks, and Ashley's wife, Lucy, was among the early female members. George Abraham's travels to Scotland and the Alps provided material for more climbing books and as a pioneer of motoring he wrote Motorways in Lakeland (1913) and Motorways at Home and Abroad (1928) to satisfy a growing market, while Ashley toured England giving lantern-slide talks.

 

In the early 1920s he made a five-minute travelogue for Pathé about climbing Napes Needle. Both brothers became directors of G. P. Abraham Ltd, which was carried on by Ashley's sons. Ashley Abraham died at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, on 9 October 1951. He was never a member of the Alpine Club, although it did honour him with an obituary. George Abraham was admitted to membership in 1954, when he was over eighty; he died at his home, Idwal, Chestnut Hill, Keswick, on 4 March 1965.