Dimensions
159 x 35 x 238mm
When the body of George Mallory was found high on the monumental, wind-scoured north face of Everest on 1 May 1999, it marked the latest episode in a tale of heroism and tragedy. In 1924, Mallory and his companion Andrew Irvine, wearing rudimentary clothing and using primitive oxygen equipment, disappeared during a valiant bid to reach the world's highest summit. Although their fate has now been partly resolved, the riddle of whether they succeeded in their bid, twenty-nine years ahead of Hillary and Tenzing, remains as tantalising as ever.
Behind the image of the intrepid adventurer, who really was George Mallory? This book considers the motives and aspirations of this inspirational yet complex figure. A vicar's son, he had a privileged upbringing, consorted with the Bloomsbury set, and fought in the trenches of the Western Front. He was also a writer, teacher and idealist, attracted to the new political ideas of the times.
Dominating his life were his two conflicting passions: his love for his wife Ruth whom he had married on the eve of the First World War, and their three young children, and Everest - forbidding, unclimbed, the wildest dream, as he called it - which continued to lure him back.
Here is a powerful and affecting portrait of a man torn between competing desires, and the fatal choice he ultimately made.
