Product Description

• Chronicles all three of Mallory's Everest expeditions
• Illuminates how Mallory reconciled his ambitions on Everest with his unquestioned love for his wife and family

Since the discovery in 1999 of George Mallory's body on Everest, controversy has raged over whether Mallory and Andrew Irvine could have summitted the mountain. Every detail of the climb has been dissected and Mallory's skill as a mountaineer has been hotly debated. Observing the debate, Peter and Leni Gillman felt that the essence of who Mallory was as an individual had been lost. In The Wildest Dream they offer the most comprehensive biography ever written about one of the twentieth century's most intriguing personalities.

Exploring Mallory's early years, the Gillman's take the reader to Cambridge and Bloomsbury where Mallory consorted with some of the most colorful literary and artistic figures of Edwardian England: Rupert Brooke, James and Lytton Strachey, Maynard and Geoffrey Keynes, and Duncan Grant, among others. The Wildest Dream moves on to examine exactly what Mallory accomplished as a climber, evaluating the quality of his routes and skills within the context of climbing in the early 1900s.

At the heart of this biography, and of Mallory's life, is his wife, Ruth. The letters they exchanged during the many separations caused by World War I and three Everest expeditions reveal the depth of their commitment to each other and the unwavering support and strength Ruth offered George. The Everest expeditions are also insightfully rendered, offering perspective on criticisms levied at Mallory after the 1921 and 1922 attempts. The authors examine how Mallory, a dedicated husband and father, arrived at his fateful decision to participate in the doomed 1924 expedition and why he continued to press for a summit attempt when the odds seemed stacked against him. As Mallory once declared, a climber was what he was, and this is what climbers did; this was how they fulfilled their wildest dreams.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #469607 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 287 pages

From Amazon.com
In 1924, a 37-year-old English schoolmaster and war veteran named George Mallory bid farewell to his beloved wife and children and went off to Tibet, where he intended to climb the north face of Mount Everest, a feat that had never been achieved. He was warned that the approach might not be attainable--and that, in any event, humans might not be able to survive at such altitudes without oxygen. But in that fine British spirit of dauntlessness, Mallory pressed on all the same, and he and his novice companion Andrew Irvine did not survive.

When Mallory's frozen body was found on the high slopes of Everest in 1999, it touched off a wave of interest in the question of whether he had reached the top before falling to his death--which, if so, would unseat Edmund Hillary's 1953 expedition as the first to summit. Peter and Leni Gillman, themselves mountaineers, hint that he did, drawing on evidence that is at best circumstantial but compelling all the same. Their interest in this biography, however, is to provide a more complete picture of Mallory as a man of his time, who was a familiar among the Bloomsbury set of writers, a loving husband and father, an accomplished scholar and teacher, and a modest hero who, though not technically the best climber of his time, never refused a challenge. The Gillmans acquit themselves in this task very well, and they offer a fascinating reconstruction of what they imagine to be Mallory's last moments on earth. Their book makes a fine companion to Conrad Anker and David Roberts's The Lost Explorer and David Breashears and Audrey Salkeld's Last Climb. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly
Why did George Mallory, his 1924 expedition in treacherous straits, nevertheless make a last-ditch attempt to go for the summit of Mt. EverestAa decision that cost the lives of this seasoned climber and his young climbing partner, Andrew Irvine? To the Gillmans, British journalists and mountaineers who together retraced Mallory's 1921 reconnaissance expedition, the answer is plain: he hoped to resolve the conflict at the core of his marriage, to obviate the need for further expeditions and further separations from his beloved wife, Ruth. This vivid, illustrated biography is both a moving tribute to Mallory and a fresh reappraisal of the man and the legends surrounding him. While the authors take no position on whether or not Mallory and Irvine reached Everest's acmeAa controversy intensified by the discovery of Mallory's body in 1999Athey provide a useful summary of the ongoing debate. Drawing liberally on letters between Mallory and his wife, the Gillmans chart the highs and lows of a marriage strained by his periodic absences. While mountain climbing was for decades an imperialist's sport, Mallory did not fit the mold. A rector's son, he became a Fabian socialist and agnostic at Cambridge, making friends with poet Rupert Brooke, Robert Graves and Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant, and indulging in a brief homosexual affair. Mallory's literary output includes a study of Boswell and an intense love sonnet to fianc?e Ruth. Among the spate of recent books on Mallory's Everest expeditions, this biography stands out for its well-rounded, sensitive portrait of a restless, thoughtful adventurer. Photos. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In 1999, George Mallory's body was found by an expedition to Mount Everest, 75 years after his death at the age of 36 on his third attempt to scale the world's tallest mountain. Journalists Peter and Leni Gillman examine Mallory's life and the motivation behind his mountaineering. They look at his career in the cultural context of British society at the time when mountain climbing was restricted to the upper classes and had little in the way of specialized equipment or techniques. Mallory weighed responsibility to his wife and three children against the "thrilling business" of climbing mountains. Based on letters and diaries, the Gillmans recount Mallory's family life, education at Cambridge, homoerotic relationships, and his radical stirrings in a period that was challenging Victorian restraints. Mallory was handsome, charismatic, and adventurous, well-suited to his role as a fringe character in the Bloomsbury salon of the time. The Gillmans also detail the hardships and perils of Mallory's three Mount Everest expeditions. This is a finely drawn portrait of an adventurer of the early twentieth century. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved