HERZOG, Maurice. Annapurna. Conquest of the First 8000-metre Peak [26,493 feet]. London: Jonathan Cape, 1952.
First English edition, first impression. First published in France in 1951 as Annapurna, premier 8000, Herzog’s account quickly became one of the defining works of modern mountaineering literature. This is the first book that brought the story to English readers, translated from the French by Nea Morin and Janet Adam Smith, with an introduction by Eric Shipton.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in silver, in the original pictorial dust jacket, protected in a removable mylar sleeve. Illustrated with photographic plates, maps in the text, and the folding map present at the rear.
A very good copy in a very good dust jacket. Cloth clean, spine a little faded, contents bright, with light spotting to the endpapers and edges. The jacket is complete and highly presentable, with light rubbing, small chips and wear to extremities.
Boldly signed by Maurice Herzog on the title page, with a further place and date inscription beneath, London, 1952.
One of the great landmarks of mountaineering literature: the story of the 1950 French expedition that achieved the first ascent of an 8,000-metre peak. Herzog and Louis Lachenal reached the summit of Annapurna, but the descent became an ordeal of frostbite, snow blindness, exhaustion and survival. The book became one of the defining adventure narratives of the twentieth century, combining triumph, suffering and the terrible cost of high-altitude achievement.
Signed copies of the true first English edition in jacket, with the folding map present, are notably scarce.
