Summits and Secrets (First Edition, Signed)

The first English edition of Kurt Diemberger’s climbing autobiography, in Hugh Merrick’s translation, signed by the author.

Diemberger’s book follows his climbing from his youth in Salzburg through the Alps and the Himalaya. Collomb, reviewing it in the Alpine Journal’s “Books of the Year” for 1972, called it a candid autobiography that goes beyond ordinary mountaineering reporting. He singled out Merrick’s translation, which renders Viennese and Salzburg slang in a north-country English dialect for reported speech, as bold and successful. Diemberger had by then made first ascents of two eight-thousanders, Broad Peak and Dhaulagiri, a distinction the review said no other living climber then shared. He was also with Hermann Buhl on Chogolisa when Buhl fell to his death through a cornice. The book’s account of that day is among its best-known passages.

First English edition, signed by Diemberger to the title page in black ink. Octavo. 344pp., with photographs and maps throughout text. Blue cloth, lettered in silver to the spine, in the original pictorial dust jacket, unclipped (£5.50). Near fine in very good dust jacket. The jacket is a touch worn and toned along the edges. The cloth boards show a touch of rubbing at the extremities. The book is generally clean and bright, with some very faint foxing along the edges. W. Williams signature to upper FFEP.

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

Catalogue Number: HH000879