SIGNED BY MOUNTAINEER ROBERT BATES

BATES, Robert H. Mystery, Beauty, and Danger. The Literature of the Mountains and Mountain Climbing Published in English Before 1946. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Peter E. Randall, (2001). Octavo, original green cloth, original dust jacket. $250.

First edition of this survey of mountaineering literature through history, signed on the title page by the author, mountaineer Robert H. Bates.

Written as American mountaineer Robert Bates' doctoral dissertation, Mystery, Beauty, and Danger traces the history of writing about mountain-climbing, including both poetry and prose examples. Bates follows the public perception of mountains from early writers who considered them objects of terror, to later writers who viewed them in terms of natural beauty, to modern writers beginning to depict them as sites of adventure, triumph, and tragedy.

A fine signed copy.