Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69.

WHYMPER, Edward.

Item Number: 25092

London: John Murray, 1871.

First edition of the author’s classic work on mountaineering, the first to help promote the very notion that peaks are meant to be climbed. Octavo, original cloth, 23 plates and numerous illustrations after drawings by Whymper; 5 folding maps. Inscribed by the author to the geologist and Alpinist Thomas Bonney , “from his obedient servant–the Author.” Also tipped in is a cordial 2 1/2-page letter signed from Whymper dated London, 15 June 1871, presenting this copy to Bonney, with additional comments on geological topics and book reviewing (“If I am asked to suggest reviewers, could you spare time to cut up ‘Scrambles’?”).

Published in 1871, Scrambles Amongst the Alps is Whymper's own story of his nine years spent climbing in the Alps. One of the first books devoted to the sheer thrill of mountaineering, it is a breathtaking account of the triumph of man over mountain "the mountain which first dominated then destroyed him. His book Scrambles is the most famous mountaineering book in the world" (Neate).