Description
8vo, XXIII, 308pp. Hardcover in blue cloth boards in good condition with minor shelf wear only and an unclipped d/w in a fair/good state with minor chipping at all edges and corners and some discolouration on edges too, text in good condition with occasional foxing though all twenty-three photoplates (by the author) are present and in excellent condition with the only prior owner markings being a prize certificate from an English girls’school from 1946 adhered to the front pastedown. Frank Smythe was a very famous English mountaineer, author, photographer and botanist too. Best remembered for his mountaineering in the Alps as well as in the Himalayas. He was best known for being a key member and photographer in three much-trumpeted British Everest expeditions in 1933, 1936 and 1938. Smythe may have been the first person to actually see Mallory’s body (by telescope over 16kms away) who was eventually found in 1999. This is a lovely older book evoking Smythe’s genuine love of the mountains and a bygone era of adventure and exploration.