Climbing Everest - 'Because It Is There'

As the release of the movie, The Wildest Dream - starring Liam Neeson as mountaineer, George Mallory and Liam's late wife, Natasha Richardson as Ruth, Mallory's wife - looms, the fateful expedition to the highest point on earth on top of Everest is again in focus.

The complete writings of George Leigh Mallory, Climbing Everest, by Peter Gillman is being published by Gibson Square.

It follows the success of the fictionalised novel Paths of Glory, by Jeffery Archer, and is just days ahead of the 24 September UK release of the Mallory film reconstructing the fatal 1924 expedition.

He was the first great heroic writer of mountaineering, whose influential writings rank with Chris Bonington, Joe Simpson and Jon Krakauer, have been collected and published in book form for the first time.

Mallory biographer and film adviser Peter Gillman tells in his introduction how three major publishers turned down his proposal to publish Mallory's complete works as all Mallory's writings from Everest began as letters which he wrote, no matter how bad the weather, to his wife Ruth.

Now, these have been re-crafted into the inspirational narratives that appear in this collection.

In Climbing Everest, George Mallory takes the reader with him on his climbs in Britain and the Alps, culminating in his three attempts to be the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest - the last of which cost him his life, a few days after he wrote the final piece in the book.

Among his legacies was this collection of expressive and emotionally literate writing, capturing the lure and the challenge of the mountaineer's world.

Mallory also elaborates on his celebrated response to the question, "Why climb Everest?" – "Because it is there".

He writes that the appeal of mountaineering goes beyond the aesthetic and involves an emotional journey, to be realized when the climber achieves the experience from beginning to end.

(BMcC/GK)