What do you think?
Rate this book
The Epic of Mount Everest
PRE-ISBN
“Separate descriptions of the three Mount Everest Expeditions have already been written by those who took part in them, and have been published in the three books, Mount Everest: The Reconnaissance,” 1921; “The Assault on Mount Everest,” 1922; and “The Fight for Everest,” 1924. The present volume purports to be a condensed description of the three Expeditions. It is written on behalf of the Mount Everest Committee, and is based on the above-named publications. For the sake of connectedness and brevity of narrative the exact words of the previous writers are not always used; but they are followed as closely as may be, and the present writer freely and gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to those who have brought back such vivid accounts of their exploits. F.E.Y.”
“Separate descriptions of the three Mount Everest Expeditions have already been written by those who took part in them, and have been published in the three books, Mount Everest: The Reconnaissance,” 1921; “The Assault on Mount Everest,” 1922; and “The Fight for Everest,” 1924. The present volume purports to be a condensed description of the three Expeditions. It is written on behalf of the Mount Everest Committee, and is based on the above-named publications. For the sake of connectedness and brevity of narrative the exact words of the previous writers are not always used; but they are followed as closely as may be, and the present writer freely and gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to those who have brought back such vivid accounts of their exploits. F.E.Y.”
319 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1926
5 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Francis Younghusband
106 books14 followersSir Francis Edward Younghusband was born on 31 May 1863 in Muree on the North-West Frontier of British India (now in Pakistan), the son of Major-General John W. Younghusband and Clara Jane Shaw. Younghusband married Helen Augusta Magniac, with whom he had two children, a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Eileen Younghusband. Their daughter went on to become a prominent social worker. He died on 31 July 1942 in Dorset, England.
Younghusband attended Clifton College, Bristol, before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1881. After his time at the Academy he was commissioned as a Subaltern in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards where he began his military career. He rose through the ranks and in 1902, due to fears of Russian expansion, the now Major Younghusband, was promoted to the position of British Commisioner to Tibet, a post he held until 1904. He was an explorer of the Gobi Desert and Manchuria. In 1906, he became British Resident in Kashmir.
He returned to Britain in 1909 and became involved and interested in religious/spiritual matters. He was a member of the India Society and became friends with many Indians in Britain.
Younghusband was elected President of the Royal Geographic Society in 1919, and two years later became Chairman of the Mount Everest Committee which was set up in 1921 to co-ordinate the reconnaissance of Mount Everest. He actively encouraged climbers, including George Mallory, to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and they followed the same initial route as the earlier Tibet Mission.
In 1933 he attended the Second Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He then became involved in the organization and leadership of the World Fellowship of Faith's congress in London, to be held in 1936. Subsequent congresses were held in places such as Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, Paris in 1939, in which Younghusband continued to take a leading role.
Younghusband wrote twenty-six books between 1895 and 1942 on topics ranging from exploration and mountaineering to philosophy and politics.
Younghusband attended Clifton College, Bristol, before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1881. After his time at the Academy he was commissioned as a Subaltern in the 1st King's Dragoon Guards where he began his military career. He rose through the ranks and in 1902, due to fears of Russian expansion, the now Major Younghusband, was promoted to the position of British Commisioner to Tibet, a post he held until 1904. He was an explorer of the Gobi Desert and Manchuria. In 1906, he became British Resident in Kashmir.
He returned to Britain in 1909 and became involved and interested in religious/spiritual matters. He was a member of the India Society and became friends with many Indians in Britain.
Younghusband was elected President of the Royal Geographic Society in 1919, and two years later became Chairman of the Mount Everest Committee which was set up in 1921 to co-ordinate the reconnaissance of Mount Everest. He actively encouraged climbers, including George Mallory, to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and they followed the same initial route as the earlier Tibet Mission.
In 1933 he attended the Second Parliament of Religions in Chicago. He then became involved in the organization and leadership of the World Fellowship of Faith's congress in London, to be held in 1936. Subsequent congresses were held in places such as Oxford in 1937, Cambridge in 1938, Paris in 1939, in which Younghusband continued to take a leading role.
Younghusband wrote twenty-six books between 1895 and 1942 on topics ranging from exploration and mountaineering to philosophy and politics.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 27, 2015
Younghusband gives here a very readable condensed description (319 pages in a pocket-sized book, illustrated) of the accounts of three expeditions which can be read at full length in “Mount Everest: The Reconnaissance, 1921”; “The Assault on Mount Everest; 1922;”, and “The Fight for Everest; 1924.” That immediately puts the narrative of “The Epic of Mount Everest” into reported speech; which having recently finished reading Wilfred Noyce’s excellent “South Col” (the conquest of Everest in 1953), I initially found a little awkward.
“The Epic …” is very well worth persisting with. It’s unfortunately far too easy for success to breed an entirely unwarranted laissez-faire over what previously were felt to be insurmountable challenges. Hence the discussion and arguments ranging throughout this book on the benefits of acclimatisation and the use, or not, of pure oxygen; would have made a valuable contribution to the planning of the 1953 expedition. With three expeditions in one book, it is interesting to follow how ultimate success was realised from that knowledge and experience, however painfully obtained. Oh for the advantages of hindsight!
It seems obvious to us now that man can survive at 29,002 ft (even more so now that the summit of Everest witnesses stationary queues of climbers); but back in 1921 no-one knew if it was physically possible for man to climb to, let alone survive, at that height. This was the technological and physiological Project Mercury and Project Apollo challenge of its day. We should indeed be careless to forget that. Here were stoic fit young men who, having recently fought for King and Country in the First World War, were accustomed to great hardships, deprivation and fear; and who knew exactly how to lead, move and inspire men to ever greater achievement through appealing to their imagination.
The successful 1953 expedition climbed Mt. Everest from the south (Nepal). Due to the politics of the time, the British expeditions of 1921, ’22, and ‘24 had to hope (there was no certainty) that there might be a route up the mountain from the north (Tibet). How unthinkably awful to survive through all that extreme physical exertion and danger …. and then, possibly, not even find a way up to the summit!
It was heart-rending to read of Norton and Somervell’s reasoned decision in 1924 to turn back at 28,126ft. Here Younghusband’s style of writing rises resonant of the period; some may now find such an attitude difficult to grasp; “Immortal glory was almost within their grasp; but they were too faint to clutch it. No stouter-hearted man or one of more indomitable courage than Somervell exists, or a more collected and persistently tenacious man than Norton”.(p.263)
Mallory and Irvine’s failure to return home on the 1924 ascent is examined in interesting detail; though with difficulty given the paucity of actual evidence pointing to their fate. Grief is assuaged through that very late Victorian (C19th) emotional mechanism of acclaiming great honour through worthy character and deeds. Not that the game is played, but how the game is played; one of the best proponents of this being the journalist and poet Rudyard Kipling, devastated by the death of his only son, who was killed in action during the First World War. Those of us alive today forget all too easily how uncommon our immediate experience of death is.
The text of this book, together with its sixteen b/w photographic plates and two line-maps, left me feeling both deeply moved and wistfully saddened that we have so few heroes of the ilk of those Everest pioneers today. The bookshelves (shop and electronic) full of TV, motorsport, and music celebrity memoirs for sale appear desperately cheap, tawdry, and insubstantial by comparison to the lives and deeds of those early heroic mountaineers who risked death and disablement to fight Everest, and who in the process greatly enlarged our scientific knowledge of this most imperial of mountains.
“The Epic …” is very well worth persisting with. It’s unfortunately far too easy for success to breed an entirely unwarranted laissez-faire over what previously were felt to be insurmountable challenges. Hence the discussion and arguments ranging throughout this book on the benefits of acclimatisation and the use, or not, of pure oxygen; would have made a valuable contribution to the planning of the 1953 expedition. With three expeditions in one book, it is interesting to follow how ultimate success was realised from that knowledge and experience, however painfully obtained. Oh for the advantages of hindsight!
It seems obvious to us now that man can survive at 29,002 ft (even more so now that the summit of Everest witnesses stationary queues of climbers); but back in 1921 no-one knew if it was physically possible for man to climb to, let alone survive, at that height. This was the technological and physiological Project Mercury and Project Apollo challenge of its day. We should indeed be careless to forget that. Here were stoic fit young men who, having recently fought for King and Country in the First World War, were accustomed to great hardships, deprivation and fear; and who knew exactly how to lead, move and inspire men to ever greater achievement through appealing to their imagination.
The successful 1953 expedition climbed Mt. Everest from the south (Nepal). Due to the politics of the time, the British expeditions of 1921, ’22, and ‘24 had to hope (there was no certainty) that there might be a route up the mountain from the north (Tibet). How unthinkably awful to survive through all that extreme physical exertion and danger …. and then, possibly, not even find a way up to the summit!
It was heart-rending to read of Norton and Somervell’s reasoned decision in 1924 to turn back at 28,126ft. Here Younghusband’s style of writing rises resonant of the period; some may now find such an attitude difficult to grasp; “Immortal glory was almost within their grasp; but they were too faint to clutch it. No stouter-hearted man or one of more indomitable courage than Somervell exists, or a more collected and persistently tenacious man than Norton”.(p.263)
Mallory and Irvine’s failure to return home on the 1924 ascent is examined in interesting detail; though with difficulty given the paucity of actual evidence pointing to their fate. Grief is assuaged through that very late Victorian (C19th) emotional mechanism of acclaiming great honour through worthy character and deeds. Not that the game is played, but how the game is played; one of the best proponents of this being the journalist and poet Rudyard Kipling, devastated by the death of his only son, who was killed in action during the First World War. Those of us alive today forget all too easily how uncommon our immediate experience of death is.
The text of this book, together with its sixteen b/w photographic plates and two line-maps, left me feeling both deeply moved and wistfully saddened that we have so few heroes of the ilk of those Everest pioneers today. The bookshelves (shop and electronic) full of TV, motorsport, and music celebrity memoirs for sale appear desperately cheap, tawdry, and insubstantial by comparison to the lives and deeds of those early heroic mountaineers who risked death and disablement to fight Everest, and who in the process greatly enlarged our scientific knowledge of this most imperial of mountains.
September 1, 2025
Knowing the ending did not detract from this tale of late Edwardian adventurism and the results of all the testing on the human spirits contained therin is not crowed to the reader, but veiled under modesty and grace.
May 31, 2020
Naprosto fascinující popis prvních expedic na Mount Everest v letech 1921, 1922 a 1924. Při čtení příběhů lidí jako Mallory, Odell, Irvine nebo Norton si člověk raději ani nevzpomene na dnešní dobu plnou placených turistů, front pod vrcholem a spousty odpadků všude kolem.
Zaujalo mne také jak se autor už tehdy, dva roky po expedici v roce 1924 negativně vyjadřoval o používání kyslíku při výstupech.
Ještě dlouho budu myslet na objevování přístupů k Everestu, laviny pod Severním sedlem, Nortonův výstup, tajemství Malloryho a Irvinovy smrti i Odellovo osamocené čekání na návrat kamarádů.
Krásná a silná kniha, zároveň svědectví doby, psaná bez znalosti věcí které přišly potom. Doporučuji.
Zaujalo mne také jak se autor už tehdy, dva roky po expedici v roce 1924 negativně vyjadřoval o používání kyslíku při výstupech.
Ještě dlouho budu myslet na objevování přístupů k Everestu, laviny pod Severním sedlem, Nortonův výstup, tajemství Malloryho a Irvinovy smrti i Odellovo osamocené čekání na návrat kamarádů.
Krásná a silná kniha, zároveň svědectví doby, psaná bez znalosti věcí které přišly potom. Doporučuji.
July 8, 2017
Správa predsedu Výboru pre Everest a horolezca z prelomu 19. a 20. storočia o britských výpravách na Everest z rokov 1921, 1922 a 1924. Písaná v roku 1926 dáva iný pohľad ako všetky neskoršie diela, ktoré boli napísané vo svetle úspechu z roku 1953 i mnohých ďalších. Younghusband hoci nie ako priamy účastník ale ako veľmi dobre informovaný píše o prípravách i podrobne o priebehu výprav, o jednotlivých členoch a zamýšľa sa i nad rôznymi otázkami a možnosťami ako dosiahnuť na najvyšší vrchol sveta.
Veľa zaujímavého čítania, kde vo mne mimoriadne a opäť zarezonovala moja najobľúbenejšia "vedľajšia" postava z románového životopisu o Mallorym - horolezec Odell, ktorý je pre mňa stelesnením obetovania seba i vlastných ambícií a ktorý v čase, keď sa len málo vedelo o vplyve nadmorskej výšky, vydržal napokon viac ako mnoho skúsenejších.
"Z tábora I bylo zpátky do základního tábora posláno sedmdesát pět nosičů a zbylých sedmdesát pět jich zůstalo, aby založili tábor II. Zvládli to a vrátili se plní radosti. Obzvláště výkon žen byl obdivuhodný. Jedna nesla své dítě, přibližně dva roky staré, na vrcholu svého osmnáctikilového nákladu z 5300 do 6000 metrů, kde vyložila náklad a dítě pak snesla zpátky dolů. Navíc se ještě nabídla, že cestu ujde klidně znovu, pokud by to bylo třeba."
Veľa zaujímavého čítania, kde vo mne mimoriadne a opäť zarezonovala moja najobľúbenejšia "vedľajšia" postava z románového životopisu o Mallorym - horolezec Odell, ktorý je pre mňa stelesnením obetovania seba i vlastných ambícií a ktorý v čase, keď sa len málo vedelo o vplyve nadmorskej výšky, vydržal napokon viac ako mnoho skúsenejších.
"Z tábora I bylo zpátky do základního tábora posláno sedmdesát pět nosičů a zbylých sedmdesát pět jich zůstalo, aby založili tábor II. Zvládli to a vrátili se plní radosti. Obzvláště výkon žen byl obdivuhodný. Jedna nesla své dítě, přibližně dva roky staré, na vrcholu svého osmnáctikilového nákladu z 5300 do 6000 metrů, kde vyložila náklad a dítě pak snesla zpátky dolů. Navíc se ještě nabídla, že cestu ujde klidně znovu, pokud by to bylo třeba."
September 22, 2021
I will start by saying I love reading about mountains and mountaineering. for those who check ot my GR's, you can see I have devoured almost any book I can find about the subject. I was super excited about this one, but Alas...
I DNF'd at 70. because I just couldn't take it anymore!
The writing style was absolutely not for me and I felt like the author was being judgemental far too often and even though he fully supported the climing expeditions of Mt Everest, I can't help but feel like part of him was envious for not being the one to get to go.
I know this was written in a different time and athmosphere, but it felt pretentious and forced.
This is probably a very unpopular opinion, but my opinion is my own.
Sir Francis Younghusband was probably a very good explorer, but that doesn't immediatly make him a good writer.
I DNF'd at 70. because I just couldn't take it anymore!
The writing style was absolutely not for me and I felt like the author was being judgemental far too often and even though he fully supported the climing expeditions of Mt Everest, I can't help but feel like part of him was envious for not being the one to get to go.
I know this was written in a different time and athmosphere, but it felt pretentious and forced.
This is probably a very unpopular opinion, but my opinion is my own.
Sir Francis Younghusband was probably a very good explorer, but that doesn't immediatly make him a good writer.
January 27, 2018
Younghusband 的文筆實在是好，翻譯的也很好。
在百年前，人類向自然挑戰的目標開始關注在高山險峰，聖母峰自是最終的目標。
「爬上去後，又怎麼樣呢？」「不是已經能夠飛得這麼高了嗎？」（按，1920年代特製的飛機已經可以到達這個高度。）
面對這樣的質疑，我很喜歡 Younghusband 的回答：
Indeed, the struggle with Everest is all part and parcel of the perpetual struggle of spirit to establish its supremacy over matter. Man, the spiritual, means to make himself supreme over even the mightiest of what is material.
在百年前，人類向自然挑戰的目標開始關注在高山險峰，聖母峰自是最終的目標。
「爬上去後，又怎麼樣呢？」「不是已經能夠飛得這麼高了嗎？」（按，1920年代特製的飛機已經可以到達這個高度。）
面對這樣的質疑，我很喜歡 Younghusband 的回答：
Indeed, the struggle with Everest is all part and parcel of the perpetual struggle of spirit to establish its supremacy over matter. Man, the spiritual, means to make himself supreme over even the mightiest of what is material.
May 7, 2014
A fascinating study in British cultural history and ideals. Recommended for all Everest enthusiasts, and those who are interested in post WW1 Britain.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews