Fallen: George Mallory: The Man. The Myth and the 1924 Everest Tragedy

 By: Mick Conefrey

Location: NF 920 CON- Exploration

Genre:  Everest-  Bio, Non Fiction

An excellent biography of George Mallory, who died on Everest in 1924 and whose body was discovered in 1999 close to the Summit. The question of whether he and Sandy Irvine, his young co-climber, reached the summit remains unanswered and has preoccupied historians and mountaineers ever since. Mick Conefrey is an accomplished mountaineer and writer who writes sensitively and sensibly about the pros and cons of this argument and conveys the heroics and resilience of these early climbers. A stirring, romantic account of extraordinary bravery and single minded commitment. Review by Stephen King

An authoritative, myth-piercing study of the world-famous explorer George Mallory, who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924.

In the years following his disappearance near the summit of Mount Everest in June 1924 at the age of thirty-seven, George Mallory was elevated into a legendary international hero.

Dubbed "the Galahad of Everest,” he was lionized by the media as the greatest mountaineer of his generation—a man who had died while taking the ultimate challenge. His body was only recovered in 1999 and there is still speculation about whether he made it to the summit. Handsome, charismatic, and daring, Mallory was a skilled public speaker, athlete, technically-gifted climber, a committed Socialist, and a supremely attractive figure to both men and women. His friends ranged from the gay artists and writers of the Bloomsbury group to the best mountaineers of his era.

But that was only one side to him. Mallory was also a risk-taker who, according to his friend and first biographer David Pye, could never get behind the wheel of a car without trying to overtake the vehicle in front; a climber who pushed himself and those around him to the limits; a chaotic technophobe who was forever losing or mishandling equipment; a man who led his porters to their deaths in 1922, as well as his young climbing partner Andrew Irvine only two years later.

So who was the real Mallory? What were the forces that made him and ultimately destroyed him? Why did the man who, in 1922, denounced oxygen sets as "damnable heresy” himself perish on an oxygen-powered summit attempt two years later? And perhaps most importantly, what made him return to Everest for his third and final attempt?

Using diaries, letters, memoirs, and thousands of contemporary documents, Fallen is a gripping forensic investigation of Mallory’s last expedition that, at long last, separates the man from the myth.