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The Hunt for Mount Everest

“A thrilling masterpiece”

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The height of Mount Everest was first measured in 1850, but it would not be until the first-ever expedition of 1921 before any westerner got closer than 40 miles of the famous peak. This book tells the gripping story of the 71-year quest to find the world’s highest mountain, climaxing one June morning in 1921 when two English climbers, George Mallory and Guy Bullock, became the first westerners—and almost certainly the first people—ever to set foot on the mountain. It is a story of high drama, two disastrous wars, great political, diplomatic, and military bungling, larger-than-life characters, a few quiet heroes, hundreds of mules, thousands of camels, and two zebrules—all playing out against a backdrop of the most spectacular geography on earth. The tale climaxes in that pivotal moment when the last remaining major prize in the history of exploration was finally claimed. This book is Everest: The Prequel. Rights have been sold for Italian, Polish, Taiwanese, and Estonian editions.

"The definitive book on Mt. Everest's discovery, naming, and earliest climbing history. Superlative research and captivating reading! A colorfully cast detective story about the empire-building British surveyors, explorers, and mountaineers who adamantly believed this newly-crowned Third Pole must be conquered, absolutely without fail, by an Englishman."

— Ed Webster, author of
Snow In the Kingdom, My Storm Years on Everest

"A compelling account of the essential back story to the epic 20th century attempt by British mountaineering expeditions to ascend the world's highest mountain ... This is great mountaineering history."

— Maurice Isserman , co-author of Fallen Giants

"To climb the world's highest mountain was one thing; to find it quite another. In this compelling new contribution to the cultural history of mountaineering, Storti composes the definitive back story of Mount Everest."

— Stewart Weaver, co-author of Fallen Giants

"Craig Storti has given us the Everest book that we've needed all along ... The Hunt for Mount Everest is the necessary, and admirably written, historical prelude to the great age of Himalayan mountaineering."

— Scott Ellsworth, author of The World Beneath Their Feet

“This history of Mount Everest's early years in the public imagination is nonfiction at its finest!”

— Alisha Trenalone, reviewer for NetGalley

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