Tiger in the Snow

Description

Published by Victor Gollancz, London, 1967, 1st UK Edition, D/w, Fine.    Walt Unsworth (1928-2017) was a distinguished British writer, editor and publisher, who founded Cicerone Press in 1969 with his wife Dorothy and friends Brian and Aileen Evans (he retired in 1999, but Cicerone Press is still going strong today with over 400 titles for mountaineers, climbers, cyclists and hikers).  He was for many years the editor of Climber magazine, helped establish Great Outdoors magazine, and wrote more than 20 books, including the definitive studies of climbing on Everest and on Mont Blanc.  This early slim biography of A.F. (Albert) Mummery (1855-1895), an English mountaineer and author who is often referred to as “the father of modern climbing” because he was amongst a small group who started climbing in the Alps without guides (frowned on even by The Alpine Club in the latter part of the 19th Century).  After initially climbing with guides, Mummery then climbed with William Cecil Slingsby, Geoffrey Hastings and J. Norman Collie, putting up some classic new routes on the Aiguille de Grepon, the Dent du Requin, the Grands Charmoz and the Taschhorn, amongst others.  In 1895, Mummery, Collie and Hastings were the first climbers to attempt an 8,000 metre peak with their expedition to Nanga Parbat, where tragically Mummery and two Gurkhas were killed by an avalanche while reconnoitering the Rakhiot Face.  Mummery also wrote one of the classics of mountaineering literature, My Climbs in the Alps and Caucasus, published in 1895.