The Kangchenjunga Adventure

London: Gollancz, 1930. First Edition. Hard Cover. Dust Jacket. First UK Edition.8vo (231 x 147mm), pp. 464; black-and-white half-tone frontispiece and 47 half-tone plates after Smythe and H. Ruttledge, 8 black-and-white maps in the text. Publisher's original green cloth lettered in gilt to the spine. 464 pp. A VG copy (spine tips softened due to the size of the book); spine faded (as usual); some inevitable foxing to the page block edges and the early/late pages of the book; overall an attractive copy. NO INSCRIPTIONS. In the VERY RARE FIRST ISSUE DUST WRAPPER PRICED 16/- net to the spine (as called for). The D/W is the nicest that I have encountered. Prone to heavy wear (due to the sheer size of the book itself) this example of the D/W has only very minor edge wear to the extremities and with a small, shallow chip from the top edge of the back panel just affecting the blurb. There are a couple of very minor tiny chips to the bottom edge of the back panel (not affecting any lettering). The head and tail are slightly frayed and there is mild discolouration/foxing to the right hand edge of the front panel. There are NO MAJOR AREAS OF LOSS TO THE DUST WRAPPER. Francis ('Frank') Smythe (1900-1949), was an English mountaineer, photographer, and botanist, and one of three British members of the Professor G. Dyrenfurth's 1930 Kangchenjunga Expedition. Smythe was "The Times" correspondent and photographer and the "leading" Englishman on the Expedition. The expedition was unsuccessful, and tragically resulted in the deaths of three climbers. Scarce in dust wrapper. Photographs/scans available upon request.