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Everest: From Reconnaissance to Summit, 1921 to 1953
Produced in collaboration with the Royal Geographical Society
Compiled, written and edited by Peter Gillman for The Folio Society, Everest: From Reconnaissance to Summit is an exclusive record of five key expeditions, introduced by Wade Davis and Jan Morris with superlative photography from the Royal Geographical Society archives.
Commissioned exclusively for The Folio Society, Everest is the ultimate account of five key expeditions to the summit of the world, using spectacular photography and reportage from the men who went there. Marking the 100th anniversary of the earliest British reconnaissance in 1921, it also covers the first attempt on the summit in 1922 and the tragic 1924 expedition that claimed the lives of Mallory and Irvine. It shows how the mountain proved unconquerable by a new generation of climbers in 1933, before the triumphant ascent of Hillary and Tenzing in 1953.
The words and pictures in this two-volume edition were selected by the award-winning mountaineering writer Peter Gillman. The first volume, A Photographic History, collects 268 of the most remarkable mountain photographs ever taken, including breathtaking panoramas, steep gorges, glaciers, ice-fields, pinnacles and close-ups of the ascents. The men’s testimony makes up the second volume, An Eyewitness History, in articles and dispatches, memoirs, official reports and private letters, each accompanied by a commentary by Gillman. Everest is introduced by Wade Davis – an authority on the early expeditions, who puts them in their historical context of the "Great Game" played out between the British and Russian empires and, in the next century, the First World War. The preface is from Jan Morris, last surviving member of the 1953 expedition until her death in 2020.
THE GREATEST MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY
Peter Gillman is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the race to conquer Everest. His selection of photography from the Royal Geographical Society archives is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, further enriched by his detailed captions. The images are of amazing aesthetic and technical quality, thanks to the presence on the expeditions of skilled photographers such as John Noel, George Lowe and George Mallory. As well as capturing the sublime beauty of the mountainscapes and the skill and endurance of the climbers, they are pioneering works in the history of photography: the 1921 expedition supplied the very first recorded images of Everest and the Tibetan people. Some pictures have seldom been seen, while others, such as Edmund Hillary’s shot of Tenzing Norgay at the summit, rank alongside the most famous news photography of the 20th century. They include new digital scans from the fragile silver-nitrate negatives held at the RGS, providing a sharpness never before possible.
THE GREATEST MOUNTAIN WRITING
The eyewitness accounts in the second volume give unparalleled insight into the determination of the crews, the unforgiving environment and the wonder of the scenery, aided by two newly drawn maps. Many of the expedition members were exceptional writers, including George Mallory; the mystery of his disappearance with Sandy Irvine inspires some of the most poignant and memorable passages. Everest is the greatest of adventure stories, with graphic descriptions of ice climbing, avalanches, snowstorms and traversing crevasses, and also a sweeping travelogue that takes in descriptions of wildlife, Tibetan monastic life and the challenges of operating a photographic lab at altitude. The agonies of failure – of exhausted men thwarted by the elements within sight of the summit – are as compelling as the accounts included from both Hillary and Tenzing of the final triumph. For a preface, The Folio Society is privileged to include one of the final pieces of writing by the late Jan Morris, who accompanied the 1953 expedition as a young reporter. Her recollection of a mystical encounter on the mountain offers a personal take on the scale and significance of the endeavor.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
Bound in printed and blocked cloth
Set in Walbaum with Mallory as display
Volume 1: 536 pages plus 2 fold-out panoramas (one 6 page, one 4 page)
Volume 2: 208 pages
268 color and black & white photographs in volume 1, and 2 maps in volume 2
Silver tops
Pictorial slipcase
9¼″ x 10¾″
Compiled, written and edited by Peter Gillman for The Folio Society, Everest: From Reconnaissance to Summit is an exclusive record of five key expeditions, introduced by Wade Davis and Jan Morris with superlative photography from the Royal Geographical Society archives.
Commissioned exclusively for The Folio Society, Everest is the ultimate account of five key expeditions to the summit of the world, using spectacular photography and reportage from the men who went there. Marking the 100th anniversary of the earliest British reconnaissance in 1921, it also covers the first attempt on the summit in 1922 and the tragic 1924 expedition that claimed the lives of Mallory and Irvine. It shows how the mountain proved unconquerable by a new generation of climbers in 1933, before the triumphant ascent of Hillary and Tenzing in 1953.
The words and pictures in this two-volume edition were selected by the award-winning mountaineering writer Peter Gillman. The first volume, A Photographic History, collects 268 of the most remarkable mountain photographs ever taken, including breathtaking panoramas, steep gorges, glaciers, ice-fields, pinnacles and close-ups of the ascents. The men’s testimony makes up the second volume, An Eyewitness History, in articles and dispatches, memoirs, official reports and private letters, each accompanied by a commentary by Gillman. Everest is introduced by Wade Davis – an authority on the early expeditions, who puts them in their historical context of the "Great Game" played out between the British and Russian empires and, in the next century, the First World War. The preface is from Jan Morris, last surviving member of the 1953 expedition until her death in 2020.
THE GREATEST MOUNTAIN PHOTOGRAPHY
Peter Gillman is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the race to conquer Everest. His selection of photography from the Royal Geographical Society archives is a masterpiece of visual storytelling, further enriched by his detailed captions. The images are of amazing aesthetic and technical quality, thanks to the presence on the expeditions of skilled photographers such as John Noel, George Lowe and George Mallory. As well as capturing the sublime beauty of the mountainscapes and the skill and endurance of the climbers, they are pioneering works in the history of photography: the 1921 expedition supplied the very first recorded images of Everest and the Tibetan people. Some pictures have seldom been seen, while others, such as Edmund Hillary’s shot of Tenzing Norgay at the summit, rank alongside the most famous news photography of the 20th century. They include new digital scans from the fragile silver-nitrate negatives held at the RGS, providing a sharpness never before possible.
THE GREATEST MOUNTAIN WRITING
The eyewitness accounts in the second volume give unparalleled insight into the determination of the crews, the unforgiving environment and the wonder of the scenery, aided by two newly drawn maps. Many of the expedition members were exceptional writers, including George Mallory; the mystery of his disappearance with Sandy Irvine inspires some of the most poignant and memorable passages. Everest is the greatest of adventure stories, with graphic descriptions of ice climbing, avalanches, snowstorms and traversing crevasses, and also a sweeping travelogue that takes in descriptions of wildlife, Tibetan monastic life and the challenges of operating a photographic lab at altitude. The agonies of failure – of exhausted men thwarted by the elements within sight of the summit – are as compelling as the accounts included from both Hillary and Tenzing of the final triumph. For a preface, The Folio Society is privileged to include one of the final pieces of writing by the late Jan Morris, who accompanied the 1953 expedition as a young reporter. Her recollection of a mystical encounter on the mountain offers a personal take on the scale and significance of the endeavor.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
Bound in printed and blocked cloth
Set in Walbaum with Mallory as display
Volume 1: 536 pages plus 2 fold-out panoramas (one 6 page, one 4 page)
Volume 2: 208 pages
268 color and black & white photographs in volume 1, and 2 maps in volume 2
Silver tops
Pictorial slipcase
9¼″ x 10¾″
- GenresHistory
744 pages, Hardcover
First published May 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 27, 2025
"the highest of mountains is capable of severity, a severity so awful and so fatal that the wiser sort of men do well to think and tremble even on the threshold of their high endeavour."
- Mallory
An absolutely fascinating look at the pioneering failure and eventual success of summiting Everest. It really gives you a window into the reasoning behind decision making (often political) during the early attempts. What shocks you is not that a few people died but how few did during the early attempt up Everest 'the hard way' with hemp ropes, scrambling in hobnailed boots, wearing tweed and wool.
The six 1920s and 1930s expeditions all attempted via the NE ridge due to needing to start from the Tibetan side. The successful 1953 expedition took a route identified by the first 1921 expedition that they could more easily reach from Nepal.
When comparing why the 1953 expedition succeeded where the others failed it's important to note the difficulties each faced. We can break them into two categories, route difficulty and equipment quality.
1920s + 1930s EQUIPMENT
- Gabardine, silk & tweed layers; hob-nailed boots, 10-point crampons, hemp ropes.
- Finch frame with 2–4 steel cylinders; ~ 15kg for four tanks; fragile valves; flow ≈ 2 L min⁻¹. Chronic leaks & ice-blockage; Mallory-Irvine sets described as faulty even before the push. There wasn't reliance on oxygen, sometimes it was used and sometimes not and sometimes it broke.
1953 EQUIPMENT
- Down suits, double plastic boots, 12-point crampons, nylon ropes, lightweight tents.
- Alloy cylinders; 10-15kg for two tanks; dependable regulators; flow 4 L min⁻¹ giving ~6 h supply. Extensively field-tested; spare parts at every camp; one closed-circuit set failed on 26 May but open-circuit sets for Hillary/Tenzing worked flawlessly.
- Better gear shaved hours off routine tasks (melting water, packing, route-fixing), translated into earlier starts and greater staying power high on the ridge.
1920s + 1930s NE RIDGE ROUTE
- Camp VI ≈ 8 138 m on a small perch beneath the First Step.
- 730 m vertical, much of it along a knife-edge ridge with three rocky “Steps”.
- Second Step = 40 m wall at 8 610 m, modern free grade 5.7-5.10 (no ladder before 1975).
- Windward side of jet-stream; May–June often bitterly cold & gusty.
- Hard blue-ice traverse, rockfall from Steps, long exposed descent in afternoon wind.
1953 SOUTH COL ROUTE
- Camp IX ≈ 8 500 m on the South-East Ridge shoulder.
- 350 m vertical: gentle snow to South Summit, then the Hillary Step and summit snow-cone.
- Hillary Step – 12 m chimney, class 4/≈ 5.5–5.6, lower angle but still exposed .
- Lee side of prevailing winds; slightly warmer mornings, sun very early.
- Khumbu Icefall & Lhotse Face difficulties are below summit camp, not part of summit push.
Bottom line: the NE-Ridge summit day is longer, starts lower and contains a harder rock crux than the SE-Ridge line that Hillary and Tenzing faced.
WHY THE PRE-1953 TEAMS STARTED SO LATE AND TURNED BACK EARLY
- The pre-1953 teams believed frostbite risk before sunrise was unacceptable and their electric torches were weak, so they scheduled departures around first light (6-8 a.m.). Norton & Somervell finally left at 6:40 a.m. after re-melting spilled water. Mallory & Irvine only reached Camp VI at dusk on 7 June and may have started summit morning behind schedule by 5 h.
- From 8 138 m, Norton & Somervell had ~730 m to climb; from 8500 m Hillary & Tenzing had ~350 m. A 6:30 a.m. start from Camp IX was equivalent to a 3 a.m. start from the North side in terms of total effort.
- Each carried ~1 L of fluid; melting more in the Death Zone was impossibly slow, forcing conservative turn-around times.
- Leaks and missing mouthpieces delayed starts and forced premature descents, as Odell noted when he found abandoned gear at Camp V/VI
- The real difficulty of the Second Step was unseen until arrival; most teams budgeted no contingency for spending hours solving a vertical 5 .8 wall at 8600 m.
Early British expeditions combined military logistics with Edwardian “gentleman-amateur” ethics: no fixed high-altitude rescue capacity, no radios (until 30s), and a preference for retreat while strength remained. John Hunt’s 1953 plan was explicitly more aggressive – three successive assault teams, fixed ropes on the crux, and acceptance that the summit pair would probably bivouac above 8500 m if things went wrong.
The 1920s climbers were exceptionally bold – Norton set an unaided altitude record of 8 573 m that stood 28 years – but they lacked today’s tools and physiological knowledge. Hillary and Tenzing married comparable climbing skill with radically better logistics, gear, and science.
"He would have walked on, even to his end, because for him as for all of his generation death was but 'a frail barrier' that men crossed, 'smiling and gallant, every day'. They had seen so much of death that life mattered less than the moments of being alive."
- Mallory
An absolutely fascinating look at the pioneering failure and eventual success of summiting Everest. It really gives you a window into the reasoning behind decision making (often political) during the early attempts. What shocks you is not that a few people died but how few did during the early attempt up Everest 'the hard way' with hemp ropes, scrambling in hobnailed boots, wearing tweed and wool.
The six 1920s and 1930s expeditions all attempted via the NE ridge due to needing to start from the Tibetan side. The successful 1953 expedition took a route identified by the first 1921 expedition that they could more easily reach from Nepal.
When comparing why the 1953 expedition succeeded where the others failed it's important to note the difficulties each faced. We can break them into two categories, route difficulty and equipment quality.
1920s + 1930s EQUIPMENT
- Gabardine, silk & tweed layers; hob-nailed boots, 10-point crampons, hemp ropes.
- Finch frame with 2–4 steel cylinders; ~ 15kg for four tanks; fragile valves; flow ≈ 2 L min⁻¹. Chronic leaks & ice-blockage; Mallory-Irvine sets described as faulty even before the push. There wasn't reliance on oxygen, sometimes it was used and sometimes not and sometimes it broke.
1953 EQUIPMENT
- Down suits, double plastic boots, 12-point crampons, nylon ropes, lightweight tents.
- Alloy cylinders; 10-15kg for two tanks; dependable regulators; flow 4 L min⁻¹ giving ~6 h supply. Extensively field-tested; spare parts at every camp; one closed-circuit set failed on 26 May but open-circuit sets for Hillary/Tenzing worked flawlessly.
- Better gear shaved hours off routine tasks (melting water, packing, route-fixing), translated into earlier starts and greater staying power high on the ridge.
1920s + 1930s NE RIDGE ROUTE
- Camp VI ≈ 8 138 m on a small perch beneath the First Step.
- 730 m vertical, much of it along a knife-edge ridge with three rocky “Steps”.
- Second Step = 40 m wall at 8 610 m, modern free grade 5.7-5.10 (no ladder before 1975).
- Windward side of jet-stream; May–June often bitterly cold & gusty.
- Hard blue-ice traverse, rockfall from Steps, long exposed descent in afternoon wind.
1953 SOUTH COL ROUTE
- Camp IX ≈ 8 500 m on the South-East Ridge shoulder.
- 350 m vertical: gentle snow to South Summit, then the Hillary Step and summit snow-cone.
- Hillary Step – 12 m chimney, class 4/≈ 5.5–5.6, lower angle but still exposed .
- Lee side of prevailing winds; slightly warmer mornings, sun very early.
- Khumbu Icefall & Lhotse Face difficulties are below summit camp, not part of summit push.
Bottom line: the NE-Ridge summit day is longer, starts lower and contains a harder rock crux than the SE-Ridge line that Hillary and Tenzing faced.
WHY THE PRE-1953 TEAMS STARTED SO LATE AND TURNED BACK EARLY
- The pre-1953 teams believed frostbite risk before sunrise was unacceptable and their electric torches were weak, so they scheduled departures around first light (6-8 a.m.). Norton & Somervell finally left at 6:40 a.m. after re-melting spilled water. Mallory & Irvine only reached Camp VI at dusk on 7 June and may have started summit morning behind schedule by 5 h.
- From 8 138 m, Norton & Somervell had ~730 m to climb; from 8500 m Hillary & Tenzing had ~350 m. A 6:30 a.m. start from Camp IX was equivalent to a 3 a.m. start from the North side in terms of total effort.
- Each carried ~1 L of fluid; melting more in the Death Zone was impossibly slow, forcing conservative turn-around times.
- Leaks and missing mouthpieces delayed starts and forced premature descents, as Odell noted when he found abandoned gear at Camp V/VI
- The real difficulty of the Second Step was unseen until arrival; most teams budgeted no contingency for spending hours solving a vertical 5 .8 wall at 8600 m.
Early British expeditions combined military logistics with Edwardian “gentleman-amateur” ethics: no fixed high-altitude rescue capacity, no radios (until 30s), and a preference for retreat while strength remained. John Hunt’s 1953 plan was explicitly more aggressive – three successive assault teams, fixed ropes on the crux, and acceptance that the summit pair would probably bivouac above 8500 m if things went wrong.
The 1920s climbers were exceptionally bold – Norton set an unaided altitude record of 8 573 m that stood 28 years – but they lacked today’s tools and physiological knowledge. Hillary and Tenzing married comparable climbing skill with radically better logistics, gear, and science.
"He would have walked on, even to his end, because for him as for all of his generation death was but 'a frail barrier' that men crossed, 'smiling and gallant, every day'. They had seen so much of death that life mattered less than the moments of being alive."
Displaying 1 of 1 review