Description
The first edition of Americans on Everest by James Ullman, inscribed by the leader of the first successful American Everest Expedition, Norman Dyhrenfurth, to Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.
Octavo, xxi, [3], 429pp. Blue cloth, title stamped on spine. Stated “First Edition” on the copyright page. Complete with seven color plates and 120 photographs, maps, and tables. Top edge dyed red. Illustrated endpapers, solid text block. In the publisher’s first state dust jacket, $8.95 retail price on the front flap, a few short closed tears, bright illustrations, two pieces of archival tape reinforcement to verso, chip on rear panel.
(Neate, U01)
Inscribed on the half title: “To Robert S. McNamara – who knows why men climb mountains – from the Americans On Everest / Norman G. Dyhrenfurth / Santa Monica, 1964.”
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had a lifelong passion for mountaineering. In the 1940’s, he ascended Mount Whitney in California and made it to 18,000 feet on Mount Everest in the 1980’s. His support of the 1963 American Expedition to summit Everest was critical to the team’s success. Norman G. Dyhrenfurth (1928-2017) led the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition, which achieved the first successful U.S. ascents of Everest via the West Ridge, with climbers Jim Whitney and Willi Unsoeld reaching the summit.
