The Moth and the Mountain

Description

Published by Viking Penguin, 2020, 1st UK Edition, D/w, Fine.   The story of the First World War veteran Maurice Wilson’s attempt to climb Mt Everest completely alone in 1934 by flying a Gipsy Moth plane from England to Everest and crash landing on its lower slopes.  With limited flying and no mountaineering experience, he managed to land, surreptitiously get into Tibet and climb to a height of almost 7000 metres before dying on the mountain, his body being recovered by the British 1935 Expedition the following year.  The author recognises and acknowledges his use of the research carried out by Roberts for his earlier work I’ll Climb Mountain Everest Alone published in 1957, but he also has access to more recent material and is able to correct some of the errors and omissions in Roberts’s book, asserting that Wilson made a significant and unrecognised contribution to the Everest story.