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The Moth and the Mountain: A True Story of Love, War and Everest – Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Biography Award

Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Biography Award”One of the best books ever written about the early attempts to conquer Everest. A fine, fine slice of history by a truly special writer who proves time and time again that he is among the best of his generation” Dan Jones, author of `The Plantagenets`”A small classic of the biographer`s art” Sunday TimesThe untold story of Britain`s most mysterious mountaineering legend – Maurice Wilson – and his heroic attempt to climb Everest. Alone.In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceived his own crazy, beautiful plan: he would fly a Gipsy Moth aeroplane from England to Everest, crash land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit – all utterly alone. Wilson didn`t know how to climb. He barely knew how to fly. But he had pluck, daring and a vision – he wanted to be the first man to stand on top of the world.Maurice Wilson is a man written out of the history books – dismissed as an eccentric and a charlatan by many, but held in the highest regard by world class mountaineers such as Reinhold Messner. `The Moth and the Mountain` restores him to his rightful place in the annals of Everest and in doing so attempts to answer that perennial question – why do we climb mountains?”It`s hard to imagine a finer tribute to one of Everest`s forgotten heroes” Elizabeth Day

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