Everest 1933 (First Edition)

The official account of the first expedition to return to Everest after Mallory and Irvine vanished in 1924, and the book that tells of the finding of the ice axe.

The 1933 British Everest expedition was conducted in the shadow of its predecessor. In June 1924 George Mallory and Andrew Irvine had disappeared into cloud on the mountain’s northeast ridge, last seen by Noel Odell “going strong for the top”. No British party had returned in the nine years since. Hugh Ruttledge (1884–1961), of the Indian Civil Service, led the party that did, a strong team including Frank Smythe, Eric Shipton, Percy Wyn Harris, Lawrence Wager and Jack Longland, under the Mount Everest Committee of the Royal Geographical Society and the Alpine Club. The expedition was funded in part by Ruttledge’s book contract with Hodder & Stoughton, a newspaper deal with the Daily Telegraph and a gift of £100 from King George V.

On 30 May 1933 Wyn Harris and Wager found an ice axe on the north face, below the First Step, an object generally attributed to Irvine and the first physical clue to the fate of the two climbers. The American Alpine Club’s reviewer noted that their explorations ruled out the route by the ridge and over the Second Step, and found instead a way along the slabs of the north face to a couloir. Wager, Wyn Harris and, separately, Smythe reached about 28,150 feet (8,580 metres), a height that stood as the record for climbing without supplementary oxygen until Messner and Habeler in 1978.

Ruttledge’s official narrative appeared the following year. He wrote most of it himself, with a chapter by Smythe and a large final section of specialist observations by the doctor, the geologist and others.

First edition. Royal octavo. Original blue publisher's cloth. Spine lettered and ruled in gilt. Cover margins in blind. Original unclipped dust jacket. xv, 389 pp. Photographic frontispiece and 58 sepia photographic plates throughout; 3 in-text diagrams; 4 maps, including 3 large folding. Index.  Several contemporary newspaper clippings covering the expedition loosely inserted at front. Very good in good dust jacket. Dust jacket unclipped, spine browned with some cracking and chipping. Previous repair made to inside lower spine. Cover boards have some bumping to corners and very mild darkening to spine. Contents in excellent condition. Some foxing present on preliminaries and along edges. Pages generally clean, fresh, and bright. Folding maps in fine condition, free from markings and tearing.

Provenance: from the library of Warwick H. Williams.

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Catalogue Number: ON00126.