Mountains and Men

New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1931. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Octavo in green boards, gilt titles324 pp: illustrations, plates, maps (b&w); 21 cm. Maps on lining papers Very good(+)(+); boards smooth, faint discoloration to spine, mild chipping to top of spine; pages clean; deckle edge to textblock with slight foxing; book plate affixed to paste-down endpaper, some discoloration to title page with mild age-toning to pages, else no markings present; binding tight. Hardcover.

Worthwhile personal bookplate (see photo).| A classic American mountaineering memoir, first published in the interwar period, in which the author reflects on climbing as both a physical discipline and a moral education. Drawing on experiences in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Swiss Alps, and other ranges familiar to early twentieth-century American alpinists, Robbins writes in a restrained, essayistic style that emphasizes judgment, companionship, leadership, and responsibility in dangerous terrain. The book belongs to an older tradition of mountaineering literature less concerned with conquest or record-setting than with character, patience, and the ethical obligations climbers owe to one another and to the mountains themselves, making it as much a meditation on human conduct as a record of ascents.