"Mick Conefrey has become one of our finest gazetteers of the Himalaya."
Fallen
George Mallory and the Tragic 1924 Everest Expedition
Description
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.
Reviews
"Why climb Mount Everest? 'Because it’s there,' George Mallory famously said. Then he died trying. Mr. Conefrey knows his characters and subject well."
"Compelling, thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Mick Conefrey’s Fallen is a biography that strives to get to the heart and mind, and not just the achievements, of one of the most famous and obsessive mountaineers in history.”
"Mallory and Irvine's 1924 attempt on Everest is a foundational mountaineering epic, and Mick Conefrey's Fallen brings the story to life in gripping style. George Mallory—imperfect and all too human, admirable and ambitious—drives the narrative as Conefrey details not only the 1924 expedition, but also its backstory and aftermath. Mallory and the mysteries surrounding his attempt on the world's highest mountain still grip the world's imagination today; Conefrey's deeply-researched and convincingly-told account shows us why. Fallen belongs on the shelf of Himalayan and Everest classics.”
