The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Everest: Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Ascent of Everest, 32 Firsthand Accounts of the Most Memorable Climbs

From Booklist
It has been 50 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's first ascent of Mount Everest, in 1953, giving rise to (forgive the wordplay) numerous books on the subject. Gathered here are 30 firsthand accounts by some of the climbers. In an introduction, Lewis explains how the lofty peaks were formed around 50 million years ago and how, in 1856, the surveyor general of India calculated that Everest was more than 29,000 feet high. This anthology begins with J. B. L. Noel's expedition in 1913 and includes such climbs as those of C. K. Howard-Bury (1921), T. Howard Somervell (1922), Hugh Ruttledge (1933), H. W. Tilman (1938), Doug Scott and Dougal Haston (1975), Peter Habeler (1978), Reinhold Messner (1980), Rebecca Stephens (1993), Matt Dickinson (1996), and Bear Grylls (1998). This fifty-fourth volume in the Mammoth Book series offers breathtaking adventures that can be savored without any risks to homebound readers. George Cohen
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Product Description
The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Everest celebrates the spirit to mount the ultimate peak-"Because," as George Mallory famously summed up, "it is there." This new anthology encompasses the assaults on Everest from the beginnings in 1921, through Sir Edmund Hillary's achievement in 1953, to the notorious 1996 "extreme-tourism" disaster caught so memorably in Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air. There are the legendary climbs of Mallory, Irvine's tragic disappearance, Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's 1953 first ascent, and Reinhold Messner's solo ascent-without the use of oxygen tanks-in 1980. There are also such electrifying tales by Mallory on surviving an avalanche in 1922, and Jon Krakauer on the 1996 disasters, plus more stories from "the roof of the world" by such climber-writers as Eric Shipton, Tom Hornbein, Frank Smythe, Bill Tilman, Wilfred Noyce, Walt Unsworth, and many more.