The Conquest of Everest: Original Photographs from the Legendary First Ascent

Lewis-Jones (Arctic) clarifies in his prolog that this book was originally intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1953 Everest ascent, but there were delays. The foreword by Edmund Hillary, a 2007 tribute to his friend George Lowe, is one of the last pieces Hillary wrote. Lowe was the expedition's "cine cameraman." This coffee-table book is not just a treasury of Lowe's photographs; it introduces readers fully to this "forgotten man of Everest." The bulk of the text is Lowe's memoir of his life as it relates to that expedition, with "portfolios" of his photographs, many not previously published, between the chapters. Lowe, who was the last surviving member of the expedition (he died last month), writes of his first encounters with fellow New Zealander Hillary as they climbed together in the years before being chosen for the expedition: 13 men (plus "an army of Sherpa") tasked with putting the two of them on the summit. A final chapter contains "Reflections" by others, including sons of Tenzing and of Hillary. Jan Morris, who as correspondent for the Times was attached to the expedition, provides the epilog.