Mountain Midsummer: Climbing in Four Continents (First Edition)

The mountaineering autobiography of the New Zealand doctor who became one of Sir Edmund Hillary’s regular expedition companions, in a first edition with a letter from the author.

Michael Gill, an Auckland doctor, climber, photographer and writer, was a 22-year-old medical student in 1959 when he answered a newspaper report that Hillary was looking for climbers for a Himalayan expedition. He went on to join nearly all of Hillary’s expeditions, from that first through to the 1977 jet-boat journey up the Ganges, and became a close friend. Mountain Midsummer is his account of those years, and the title’s four continents are part of its promise. The book draws on his Himalayan expeditions with Hillary, including Makalu and Ama Dablam, the search for the yeti and an Antarctic journey, as well as his climbs in the Darran Mountains of New Zealand. Gill returned to the subject in later life with Himalayan Hospitals and a biography of Hillary, published in 2017.

First edition. Octavo. 220pp., with 48 plates. Brown cloth, lettered in gilt to the spine, in the pictorial dust jacket, unclipped (NZ$4.50). Very good in like dust jacket. There is a small vertical tear to the jacket at the lower edge of the spine crease, otherwise it is in good order. The volume has some faint markings to the cover boards. It is a little toned internally, otherwise clean and bright throughout. With a handwritten letter from the author to a Bernard Teague, loosely inserted.

Not currently on display in store. For viewing or more information, please contact: rarebooks@harryhartog.com.au

Catalogue Number: HH000880