: Edward Whymper
: The Ascent of the Matterhorn Glorious' BILL BRYSON - With The Forgotten Photographs
: Gibson Square
: 9781783341856
: 1
: CHF 10.80
:
: Sonstige Sportarten
: English
: 240
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
'Glorious.' BILL BRYSONArmed with a pick-axe, clad in tweeds and hobnailed leather shoes, Edward Whymper was the first to climb the Matterhorn in 1865. It created a scandal, as four of his party fell to their deaths. These vivid memoirs spelled the birth of mountaineering, capturing the excitement, triumph and tragedy that would hover over the new sport. Causing over 500 deaths since, the Matterhorn has remained both a treacherous and irresistible sports adventure. Whymper was also a photography pioneer and his forgotten climbing photographs are published for the first time'[A] fresh and exciting read.' Chris Bonnington'Unapproachable in Alpine literature... you can almost hear the tinkle of bells on the Alps; you breathe the fresh fragrance of the pine trees.' THE TIMES'The vigour and power that only personal observation can give.' BIRMINGHAM POST'An exceptional book.' HERALD (GLASGOW).'A classic of... all storytelling.' DAILY TELEGRAPH

Edward Whymper was born into a family of engravers in Lambeth, South London, dreamt of becoming prime minister but instead became an accidental explorer who was an inspiration to the teenage Winston Churchill. Whymper explored Greenland and the Andes, while dreaming of conquering the Himalayas and Mount Kilimanjaro.

EDWARD WHYMPER


27 April 1840 (Lambeth)—11 September 1911 (Chamonix)
In many ways, the 17-year-old Edward Whymper expressed the buoyancy of 19th century Britain when he wrote in 1857 that ideas were ‘floating in my head’. He dreamed of going ‘to sea’, but also that he should be a judge, or ‘one day be Prime Minister’, or that he ‘should one day turn out some great person,bethe person of my day’. Charles Darwin would shortly publishOn the Origin of Species (1859), revealing how little we knew ourselves. Whymper felt, like many others, so little was known about ‘our little planet’. There was a sudden expansion of knowledge, technology, and living standards, and he was swept up in his generation’s optimism that opportunities in the world at large were limitless. By the 1850s, railway lines had shrunk distances like no decade before and brought Europe within easy reach. Literacy suddenly leapt as working hours decreased and there was an enormous demand for books, magazines and other media—particularly illustrated ones that revealed the exotic aspect of the unknown natural world. Everyone could take part in the quest for knowledge and satisfy their curiosity.
Moreover, the young Whymper found himself at the heart of this revolution. Whymper was born into a family of engravers based in South London’s Lambeth and engraving was a booming industry whose crest was to propel him (and his eight brothers—younger brother Henry’s home in Murree near Rawalpindi-Islamabad would five decades later become the official residence of the Prime Minister of Pakistan) around the world. It was a commission by publisher William Longman in the summer of 1860 that first sent the 20-year-old Whymper on his way to the Alps in order to gather illustrations for the waxing appetite for mountain books among Britain’s growing army of readers. Longman himself was a member of the Alpine Club founded three years earlier by 38 enthusiasts and he was the publisher of the members’ journal.
A dinner on 9 August 1860 in Zermatt accidentally proved a defining moment for Whymper. Unbeknownst to him, it set in motion what was to be a leading role in one of the greatest scandals of Victorian Britain. During this exuberant evening, he met A