A biographical guide to the 1865 accident & its aftermath.

This encyclopaedic book takes a fresh look at the Matterhorn Accident and its literature in the light of a considerable amount of new material. It reproduces scores of contemporary documents including facsimiles of several never previously published. The 300,000 word text is based on archives in Britain and In Switzerland and on more than 120 books and articles, Including material from over 50 volumes of the Alpine Journal.

Biographical sketches of 60 of the principle characters involved in the early years of the Matterhorn's climbing history, with 24,000 words on Edward Whymper; reviews of the majority of the books and articles of the last 135 years relating to the accident; first ever English translation of the official Zermatt Enquiry Report plus the original German; lists of 100's of books, articles, letters and other archive material relied upon - and much more.

Set in Bembo on acid free paper, hardback, 180mm x 256mm, 674 pages with 46 illustrations, weighing 3.5lbs.

Reviewer comments

"… a mountain of a book, a magnificently encyclopaedic guide to the most famous accident in history."
JOHN BRYANT in the Times

"…the ultimate in scholarly mountaineering books, the E9 of the genre …At £45 it looks expensive, but in terms of reading hours it's cheap."
PHIL BARTLETT in High

"This book is a treasure."
AUDREY SALKELD in Wild Words