Mount Everest The Reconnaissance 1921

Description

Published by Edward Arnold, London, 1922, 1st UK Edition, Bookplate, Insc, cloth worn, small nick top of spine, No D/w, V.G.    This volume is signed on the title page by Pertemba Sherpa (Nepalese mountaineer who took part in both the 1970 British Annapurna Expedition and the 1975 British Everest South-West Face Expedition) and also has an ‘Everest Team’ first class stamp tipped in on the title page.    Charles Howard-Bury (1881-1963) was a British-Irish soldier, explorer, mountaineer, botanist and politician.  He was the leader of the 1921 British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, whose job it was to explore possible routes up the mountain from the north, at the time the only accessible route into the mountain as Nepal was closed to foreigners, and, if possible, to climb the mountain.  Included in the expedition was George Leigh Mallory, on his first trip to the Himalaya.  Mallory was in effect the lead climber on the trip, wrote the six chapters of this book that relate to exploration on the mountain, and subsequently returned in 1922 and, fatefully, in 1924.