Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expedition of George Mallory

by David Breashears, Audrey Salkeld, Audrey Salkend

Book Overview

Describes Mallory's final expedition to Mount Everest in 1924, the mystery surrounding his disappearance, and the discovery of his remains in 1999. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792275381
• ISBN13: 9780792275381
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: National Geographic Society
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 2.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.9" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

A pictorial history of British Everest Expeditions

There are many books on the market dealing with the summit attempts of George Leigh Mallory. No one tome has yet encapsulated the adventures to stand out as the consummate work. It will be necessary to read several books to lay claim to being fully informed. The great strength of LAST CLIMB is in its wonderful collection of vintage photographs from the 1920's British Everest Expedition and its members. Its one thing to read of gentlemen climbers in tweed and quite another to see it, a picture being worth a thousand words and all that. The many dozens of photographs, some taken by Mallory himself, breath life into a much exhausted realm of discussion. Mallory was an aesthete and I believe he would not want his story to be told in the mere blandness of words but exhorted on the artistic level provided by the beautiful photography collected here. Hats off to MR. Breashears and Ms. Salkeld for presenting these heroes in all their glory.

Excellent visual history...

It states in the prologue that this book was started prior to the discovery of Mallory's body on Mt. Everest. With that said, after reading it; I'm of the impression that it was completed quickly and rushed into print after finding the body so it could sell the maximum number of copies. I've now read what I think are all the post discovery expedition books. This is an excellent book. There are wonderful pictures of the early British expeditions which are not found in other books and the writing was concise and tried to cover all areas. After reading it, the historical aspects seems to be a greatly pared down version from Audrey Salkeld's previous book with Tom Holzel "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine". Overall this is a wonderful coffee table book. It covers Mallory's history with Everest; has plenty of 1920's photographs; a section on how he went into legend like he did: pictures of what was removed from the body and a section which reviews the clues based on where the body was found and what he had on his person. If you have a casual interest in the topic, this is a great book to choose. If you are looking for something a bit more involved, try the aforementioned "The Mystery of Mallory & Irvine" by Tom Holzel and Audrey Salkeld. Looking for a book on the history of the expedition to find clues on the disappearance? The exclusive team story is in "Ghosts of Everest". Conrad Anker's version is in "The Lost Explorer" (he's the one who actually found Mallory's body). My favorite of the expedition books however, was "Lost on Everest" by Peter Firstbrook. It covers historical background on Mallory and the early Everest expeditions in more of a conversational yet detailed manner, and this I found overall the most intriguing.

Captivating tale of adventure.

I have read pieces of information about the legendary early expeditions of Mt. Everest and therefor really wanted to read this book. From the start to finish I found this book to be well researched and written. I very much enjoyed the photographs. Now I am curious about the other books written about George Mallory. This book made the men of the expedition come alive.

GREAT INTRODUCTION

I had some limited knowledge of the Mallory expeditions prior to reading this but not much. This book was a great read for me as a novice climber/historian due to my limited knowledge. Although someone who is very familiar with the subject matter may not appreciate the book, I found it to be an excellent source of information and extremely interesting to read. The photos are incredible and let you get a feel for what the author is talking about. If you are looking for the actual photos of Mallory's body clinging to the slope however, they are not here. Just what I found to be an honest, up front, and informative read regarding the whole Mallory and Irvine riddle.

will become more of a legend than the actual climb

the pictures were absolutely fabulous. they go into great detail to explain what REALLY happened, totally unbiased of the popular opinion. it was written by the king and queen of everest knowledge and does the legend of mallory such good service that GL Mallory's nephew even wrote the forward. forgetting to buy this book will be as costly as to forget your oxygen at camp six.