Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine [Paperback]

P. L. Firstbrook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest 75 years ago. This book details their final hours and the recent search expedition's attempt to resolve one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...a fascinating, well-told history of the original Mallory expeditions. -- The New York Times Book Review, Susan Reed --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Inside Flap

On 8 June 1924 George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their tent high on the slopes of Mount Everest and climbed into history. They were seen at 12:50 p.m. just 240 metres from the summit and ?going strong for the top.? Within minutes, Mallory and Irvine had disappeared in a snowstorm and were never seen alive again.

What happened to these two pioneering climbers is the most famous mystery in the history of mountaineering. For 75 years, there has been fierce debate over whether they were the first to reach the summit, 29 years before Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. In March 1999, an expedition primarily sponsored by the BBC climbed to the North Face of Everest. Their discoveries became front-page news around the world. This gripping story by film producer Peter Firstbrook fully explores the events leading up to Mallory and Irvine?s historic attempt to reach the summit of the highest mountain in the world, giving a dramatic first-hand account of the 1999 search expedition. Firstbrook utilises his extensive historical research and the amazing evidence found in 1999 to piece together the final hours of the two brave heroes ? George Mallory and Andrew Irvine.

Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine is an extraordinary tale of high adventure by the author of The Voyage of the Matthew. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Contemporary Books (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809297361
• ISBN-13: 978-0809297368
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,730,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Readable on Everest, November 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine (Paperback)

More an engaging history of early Everest exploration than a record of the expedition to find Mallory & Irvine, this book still will be of interest to climbers and arm-chair mountaineers. A few proofing errors in the later chapters detract from the quality and several of the photos could use arrows and annotations. It seemed as if the author and publisher rushed this book through to get it on the shelves before Christmas.

All that said, the plates are the best collection of early Everest illustrations that I've seen. I found the account readable and enjoyable. When the text finally got the search team on the mountain, it was captivating.

Of course, their findings raise more questions: where is Irvine and the missing camera, what happened to Mallory's watch? I'd like to know how close they were to the original camp when Mallory fell. And after they found Mallory, why didn't they spend more time looking for Irvine?

I'll probably read the other titles about the search for Mallory & Irvine just because of my mountaineering background. I'll be curious to see how they compare.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Did Mallory and Irvine stand on the summit of Everest?, November 21, 1999

By 

Paul Burgin - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine (Paperback)

Peter Firstbrook, the author of this book thinks that it's possible. Ironically however, if they did make it, it might have helped cause their deaths. By the time they would have got there it would have been early evening at the earliest. Then tiredness, exhaustion, dehydration combined might have caused Mallory's fall to his death. The irony being that they were at that point quite close, less than 200 ft, from Camp VI, from where they set off that morning. This book is divided into two parts. Part one is a biography of George Mallory, and a brief history of Himalayan mountanerring expeditions up till the 1920s, the second is an account of the expedition that found Mallory's body earlier this year. Worth reading, if only to look at the possible scenearios and evidence

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A thorough effort, until the end..., August 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine (Paperback)

Peter Firstbrook presents, essentially, a two-part text. The initial (and, overwhelming) content of the book deals factually and thoroughly with the history of the various climbing expeditions with the emphasis appropriately placed on Mallory's involvement in the whole process. The detail and insight offered by Mr. Firstbrook seems to have been genuinely and thoughtfully researched, although, I found it strange that more wasn't mentioned about Mallory's apparent disregard for his young family. Romantic letters aside, Mallory's actions clearly placed his wife and children a distant third behind his own ambition and the "chaps" with whom he fraternized. Evidence of this inconsistency in the book is liberally found whenever Mr. Firstbrook describes, in great detail, the trists that developed among Mallory and his fellow alpinist cognoscente. I suspect the omission of detail regarding Mallory's relationship with his family was a choice of the author rather than a lack of available material on the subject...

The book takes a turn towards the superficial, however, when Mr. Firstbrook suddenly transitions the reader along with the expedition which found Mallory's body in 1999. Given the level of detail he was able to provide about the early expeditions, I was amazed at how little was provided about the 1999 expedition, its team members, the discovery of the body and actual clues provided by Mallory's remains. How did the team members go about the excavation of the body, for example. And, certainly, some of the dialogue among the climbers back at base camp was worth publishing, wasn't it?

Similarly, the paucity of the (only) black and white photos of the 1999 expedition left me wondering why Mr. Firstbrook bothered to include them at. I suppose one can speculate that he either didn't have rights to the photos, or, omitted them out of respect for the families, or, that he was (somehow) bound by contract to Eric Simonson? Again, no explanation was offered.

It appears, unfortunately, that Mr. Firstbrook was under presure to complete the work before the next guy(s) did; that may account for the (somewhat) flimsy detail and discussion provided in the last couple of chapters of the book. Doesn't the title of this book suggest an emphasis on what the search team was able to ascertain in 1999? Hell, I learned almost as much about this subject matter by watching the damn NOVA presentation!