COLLECTING BOOKS ABOUT EVEREST

COLIN BRAND

I AM NEITHER A MOUNTAINEER nor a rock climber, indeed I do not even have a very good head for heights. So why do I have such a keen interest, almost bordering on the fanatical, in Everest and the history of the attempts made to climb to the summit of the world’s highest peak ?

Since I was at school I have had an interest in Indian philately and it was by chance that at an auction which I was attending one of the lots consisted of two envelopes (both with special cancellations) one of which contained a letter from a member of the Houston Mount Everest Expedition of 1933 - when an aircraft flew over Everest for the first time. Fortunately I was the successful bidder. It was some months later that I saw an advert for a book entitled Roof of the World, Man’s First Flight Over Everest by James Douglas-Hamilton - the son of the senior pilot of the expedition. I obtained a copy and it was the combination of acquiring the book and the envelopes with the letter which triggered my interest in the history of man’s attempt to place his feet on the top of Chomolungma. During the first flight over Everest, which took place on the 3 April 1933, there was very nearly a fatal accident. Sidney Bonnett, one of the cinematographers from the Gaumont British News, who was in the aircraft piloted by Flight Lieutenant David McIntyre, crouched down in his open cockpit to put new film in his camera. Unfortunately whilst doing so he trod on his oxygen feed pipe fracturing it close to his mask. He collapsed unconscious on the floor and did not start recovering until the aircraft lost considerable height to 8000 ft (2438 m) by which time Flight Lieutenant McIntyre says that he had given up all hope of Sidney Bonnett still being alive. In the letter which I acquired the writer mentions this episode as follows, ‘The day before over Everest, Bonnett, the other man, broke his oxygen pipe and no-one knows how long he was conscious (should this be unconscious ?) up there’. A remarkable under-statement about a near fatality but perhaps not surprising when you read the comments of the writer about Air Commodore Fellowes. On 4 April the Air Commodore flew one of the two aircraft which made a reconnaissance over Kangchenjunga. However on the return trip he lost his way and had to make a forced landing and stay overnight many miles from the air strip. The writer says, ‘it was tiresome missing his way home as it gave us some hours of anxiety’.

I began by attending book fairs in various parts of the United Kingdom and soon realised that there were many other books to be purchased, not only about the Houston expedition but concerning other expeditions to Everest as well - and it also became obvious that there were a great number of magazines and journals containing details and information which were published by various organisations such as The Alpine Club, The Royal Geographical Society, The American Alpine Club, The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and of course The Himalayan Club - even The Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District have had articles of interest in their journal.

Now I receive catalogues from a number of book shops specialising in mountaineering books and also travel to book fairs. My interest has expanded from just literature to all things pertaining to Everest: letters, envelopes, postcards and a number of videos have joined my collection, even a children’s game, which was on the market soon after the first successful climb in 1953, has come into my safe keeping.

Luck has been with me and I have managed to obtain good copies of the recognised major works, with one exception, of the earlier reconnaissances and expeditions of 1921, 1922, 1924, 1933, 1938 and Hugh Ruttledge’s book Everest The Unfinished Adventure which covers the reconnaissance of 1935 and the 1936 expedition. The exception is Climbing Mount Everest by George Ingle Finch, an English translation published in 1930 of his book which was published in Germany in 1925 Der Kampf um den Everest. George Finch was bi-lingual and he wrote of his own experiences during the 1922 expedition first of all in German, why I do not know, perhaps he had an argument with English publishers at the time. He it was, who, with Captain Geoffrey Bruce reached a height of 27,300 ft (8321 m) on Saturday the 27 May 1922 - the highest point then attained on Everest Of the books in my collection which deal with the 1920’s and 1930’s the one which gave me the greatest thrill when I obtained it was George Finch’s The Making of a Mountaineer. Together with the book were a letter written in pencil at base camp (17,000 ft, 5183 m) on Everest expedition note paper and signed by George Finch, and two slightly faded photographs both taken at 17,000 ft — One is of Captain George Finch with Captain Morris, an officer in one of the Gurkha regiments who was one of the expeditions two transport officers, the other is of base camp with Mount Everest in the background. The Making of a Mountaineer was reprinted or reissued in 1988 with further information from Scott Russell, George Finch’s son-in-law, regarding George’s exclusion from the 1921 and 1924 expeditions — a volume yet to reside on my bookshelves.

When reading these earlier volumes it is interesting to note the arguments for and against the use of oxygen to climb Everest. George Finch, for example, firmly believed that the use of oxygen would be necessary to reach the summit. He and Captain Bruce both carried oxygen apparatus on their backs when they climbed to 27,300 ft and George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine were also using oxygen when they disappeared during the 1924 expedition. The scientific world claimed that extensive and irreparable brain damage would result in climbing the mountain without oxygen. In fact George Finch went even further. He believed that smoking a cigarette at high altitude would help restore ‘involuntary breathing’ and thus relieve a climber of the need to concentrate the mind on ‘voluntary breathing’. He argued that high altitude reduced the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood and therefore the nerve centre controlling the involuntary breathing was no longer stimulated. Something in the smoke, he thought, acted as a stimulant and both he and Captain Bruce smoked incessantly just before their record climb. However there was a group of climbers who considered that to use artificial means of breathing at high altitudes would be to overcome Everest’s principal defence by unfair means.

Now, of course, we know that following Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler’s first climb without oxygen in 1978 many climbers have reached the summit of Everest without oxygen.

Together with these volumes about the early expeditions, literature on many Everest adventures is now on my bookshelves : from climbing, to Mike Jones canoeing down the Dudh Kosi. He started at 17,500 ft (5334 m) in a lake on the Khumbu glacier at the foot of the Everest Icefall and plunged down the Dudh Kosi which falls at 280 ft (85 m) per mile — Mike was tragically drowned in 1978 in Pakistan; Yuichiro Miura skiing down the mountain from over 26,000 ft (7925 m) and Leo Dickinson flying over the summit in a hot air balloon. The greater majority of the books, however, do deal with climbing expeditions both successful and unsuccessful - but what to do with the vast amount of information they contain ! I decided that a small computer could be of help to me, not only to assist my memory at book fairs by providing a list of the volumes, journals and magazines which I possess, but also to allow me to keep a reference file. I make a point of reading all the material I obtain and referencing the salient points, particularly those relating to first ascents. However this does mean I always have a backlog of books to read.

Although I know there are a large number of books, journals and magazines relating to various expeditions which are not yet part of my collection, I am extending my interest to events before the 1920’s. I have a photocopy of some of the proceedings of the Asiatic Society in 1857 with comments from Lieutenant-Colonel Waugh, Surveyor General of India referring to Hodgson’s belief that Everest and Deodangha are one and the same. This argument rumbled on for many years expanding from peaks being mistaken for each other, to should it be called Everest at all. In the proceedings of The Royal Geographical Society for March 1886 Douglas Freshfield joins in and refers to that curious hybrid ‘Mont Everest’ thus widening the argument even further to include the prefix. In the proceedings later in 1886 a paper appeared entitled ‘A Last Note on Mont Everest’ by General Walker, late Surveyor-General of India, the last paragraph of which read : ‘But the matter of present importance is the name itself, not the prefix. The great pinnacle may possibly be found hereafter to have a local appellation, applying to itself only, and to nothing else. I think that until then geographers cannot do better than follow the advice of the late eminent President of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchison, and allow it to continue to bear the name of Everest’. Still there was dissension, and in a letter printed in the Geographical Journal of May 1919 Dr. A M Kellas said: ‘As regards Mount Everest, one ventures to hope that the name will not be definitely fixed until after the exploration of the group of mountains of which it is chief’. This then, opens up a new field - books and papers dealing with the Himalayan surveys, for example the Journals of the Asiatic Society, Charles Black’s A Memoir on the Indian Surveys, 1875-1890, which contains information and background details of the surveys, and various volumes by Sir S G Burrard, who published books in Dehra Dun on exploration in Tibet and neighbouring regions, and Everest and its Tibetan names. I am certain that as I delve deeper into this area I will find there is much more relevant literature to be tracked down.

The most essential book I have is Climbing Mount Everest - The Bibliography compiled by Audrey Salkeld and John Boyle which was published in 1993 - it is a ‘must’ for anyone who is interested in accumulating Everest literature. It gives a listing of the books about Everest and brief details of all expeditions up to the spring of 1993 together with details of which books, journals and magazines have information on which expedition. I know that they are working on a new bibliography covering all literature relating to ascents and attempts on all of the fourteen 8000 m peaks. I have no doubt at all that this new book will be as important to collectors and students of climbing as was the first.

I have, on occasions, been asked which Everest book is the most easily available to buy - without a doubt it is the story of the first successful climb to the summit in May 1953 -The Ascent of Everest by John Hunt. There are at least two or three copies for sale at every book fair I attend. It was first published in November 1953 and the fourth impression was available as early as April 1954 followed by the fifth impression in February 1956 (there may have been further impressions, I am not sure). Until 1979 various other editions were published by; The Companion Book Club, The Readers Union, Dutton in New York and the University Press in London, together with two in paperback and an abridged version for schools; in the mean time it had been translated into, and published in, twenty seven languages. Most book dealers look upon the first edition as being the most desirable to collectors but copies of the fourth and subsequent impressions have an additional pullout ‘Chart of the Ascent of Everest’ and in my experience it is these copies which are the most difficult to obtain. In 1993 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first ascent, a leather bound limited edition of 500 copies was published and also a paper back edition which contained a new foreword by Lord Hunt and a postscript by Sir Edmund Hillary. It must be the most published book on mountaineering ever.

In 1995 I visited Darjeeling, the starting place of all the expeditions in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and after browsing for a considerable time in the excellent Oxford Bookshop in the main square I added to my book collection. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and Everest Museum were of tremendous interest but unfortunately our two days in Darjeeling coincided with a two day public holiday and the shop at the Institute was closed. A great disappointment I had hoped to obtain some of the back numbers of the Himalayan Mountaineering Journal. As it is I only have volume X 1975-76, which was the only volume the Oxford Bookshop had at that time, but perhaps other copies will come my way sometime — after all, the hunting for items you require is part of the fun of collecting.

The highlight of the visit to Darjeeling was going to see the resting place of Sherpa Tensing Norkay. I sincerely hope that the intended Tensing Museum comes into being. Photographs of Tensing’s resting place and statue and of the entrance to the Everest Museum now enhance my collection.

Collecting literature has led me to become aware of a number of lectures given by Sir Chris Bonington (leader of the first ascent via the South West Face in 1975), George Band (the youngest member of the first successful expedition which took place in 1953), and Doug Scott (who, in 1975, became the first Englishman to reach the summit), which I have been able to attend, thus giving me the chance to meet and talk to these great climbers as well as obtaining their autographs on books and articles written by them.

So from two envelopes and a letter has grown an interest in the collection of books and general ephemera of anything to do with expeditions to Everest. This in turn has led me to visit India on a number of occasions and also to travel widely and with more appreciation in my own country. I have recently returned from visiting Chester Cathedral which has a memorial window in the South Cloister to George Leigh Mallory and Andrew Irvine - I took some photographs of the window and I am hoping that they will be a success when they are processed. Both of these climbers were men of the county of Cheshire and I intend to visit the parish church of the village of Mobberley where I believe George Mallory was christened. I may even be lucky enough to see and photograph the entry in the parish records.

Among my latest acquisitions are a video given to me by Eric Blakeley, the first person from the Channel Islands to reach the summit of the highest peak, and copies of the first editions of Into Thin Air : the Everest Tragedy by Jon Krakauer and Dark Shadows Falling by Joe Simpson. Both of these books are about the tragic events on Everest in May of 1996 when eight climbers were killed, including three guides. We will all remember the reports of Rob Hall making his last telephone call by satellite linkup from high on the mountain to his wife in New Zealand just before he died. I understand that there are several more books due to be published soon dealing with the same period.

My collection of books, journals and magazines is now in the region of 350 volumes. However, none of them can answer the following questions: I have an envelope with a blue embossed seal on the flap which says ‘Himalaya Club’, the postmark is 1880. Who started such a club in the 1880’s ? Where did they meet and did they hold meetings to discuss their travels ? If they did, were minutes kept ? Perhaps one day I will find the answers, but in the meantime it is a stimulating and interesting hobby collecting books and ephemera which help to tell the stories of the great men and women who have, and still are, braving the severe hardships of climbing on Chomolungma.

SUMMARY

Collecting books about Everest

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