A Pioneer in the High Alps

Description

Published by Edward Arnold, 1920, 1st Edition, lettering on spine a little faded, slight foxing edges endpapers, Nr. Fine.

Association Copy:  this volume contains a card dated October 1921 “With kindest regards Alice Tuckett” (his widow) and a loose letter (originally tipped-in but now loose) from Alice Tuckett, written in November 1921, responding to a Mr. Braithwaite where she noted that “It is a great pleasure to to find you are so greatly enjoying my husband’s diaries and letters”.

Francis Fox Tuckett (1834-1913) joined the Alpine Club in 1859 shortly after its establishment in 1857, becoming its Vice President from 1866 to 1868, and was one of the major figures of the Golden Age of Alpinism, taking a scientific approach to his pioneering explorations.  His travels were popularised by the illustrations of his sister, Elizabeth Fox Tuckett, in volumes such as Pictures in Tyrol and Elsewhere, A Voyage en Zigzag and Zigzagging in the Dolomites.  He climbed 269 peaks and crossed 687 passes in his climbing career, including many first ascents and crossings.  In his classic Scrambles Amongst the Alps, Edward Whymper called Tuckett “that mighty mountaineer, whose name is known throughout the length and breadth of the Alps”.  This volume was published posthumously, with much credit being given to the Rev W.A.B. Coolidge for deciphering and editing Tuckett’s journals.