Travels Amongst The Great Andes Of The Equator

Author: Whymper, Edward
Price: £200
Publisher: John Murray, London, UK
Publication Date: 1892
Edition: First edition
Format: Full tree calf gilt
Condition: Fine
Pages: xx + 442 + folding maps + index

Description:

First edition. Octavo. Bound in contemporary full tree calf gilt by Bickers. Marbled edges and endpapers. Prize binding with gilt-embossed stamp to front and rear boards and prize label on front paste-down. pp. xx + 442 + folding maps + index. No supplement. Illustrated throughout with engravings. A detailed account of the expedition. A fine tight, bright, clean copy. Very scarce in this condition.

Edward Whymper: A Short Biography

Edward Whymper was an English wood-engraver turned mountaineer whose name is inseparable from the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865 and the subsequent transformation of Alpine climbing. A relentless observer and a clear, unsentimental writer, he combined practical craft knowledge with methodical fieldwork. His books—especially Scrambles Amongst the Alps—and his later scientific journeys in the Andes made him one of the most influential voices in nineteenth-century mountain culture.

Early life and training

• Birth and family: Born 27 April 1840 in London, into a family of artists and engravers. His father, Josiah Wood Whymper, trained him in wood-engraving; his elder brother Frederick also became a traveller-artist.
• Apprenticeship and skills: The engraver’s discipline—accurate draughtsmanship, patience, and practical problem-solving—would shape Whymper’s climbing and writing. In 1860 a publisher sent him to the Alps to sketch scenery for illustrated books. The trip lit the fuse: he began climbing to reach better vantage points and very quickly found he had the temperament for exploratory alpinism.

The Alpine years (1860–1869)

Whymper moved fast through the “golden age” of alpinism, when many major Alpine summits were climbed for the first time.

• Approach and partners: He favoured small, capable parties with first-rate guides, notably Michel Croz of Chamonix and, at times, the Taugwalder guides of Zermatt.
• First ascents and notable climbs:
  • Barre des Écrins in the Dauphiné (1864) — a landmark ascent that opened the high Écrins to systematic exploration.
  • Aiguille Verte (1865) — long considered one of the most coveted unclimbed peaks of the Mont Blanc range.
  • Numerous difficult passages, cols and faces throughout the Pennine and Dauphiné Alps, often after painstaking reconnaissance.

The Matterhorn, 1865

• Ascent: On 14 July 1865 Whymper, with Michel Croz, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Lord Francis Douglas, and the guides Peter Taugwalder (father and son), made the first ascent of the Matterhorn via the Hörnli ridge.
• Accident on descent: During the descent, a slip by Hadow pulled down Croz, Hudson, and Hadow, and then Lord Francis Douglas. A rope between the front four and the rear three parted, and the four fell to their deaths. Whymper and the two Taugwalders survived.
• Consequences: The disaster triggered an inquest at Zermatt and a storm of public debate about risk, equipment, leadership and the ethics of guiding. Whymper’s sober account—precise about rope quality, party management, and conditions—became a foundational text for safety culture in the mountains.

Writer and interpreter of the Alps

• Scrambles Amongst the Alps (1871): Whymper’s classic book combined narrative, route description, drawings, and practical advice. It established him as the era’s clearest writer-climber: modest about triumphs, exact about hazards, and candid about decision-making.
• Technique and equipment: He advocated better ropes, careful testing of gear, early starts, strict attention to weather, and the value of reconnaissance—principles that still read as modern.

Beyond Europe: science and exploration

After the Alps, Whymper turned to high mountains as field laboratories.

• Ecuadorian Andes (1879–1880): He organised a major expedition to study high-altitude effects and to climb the great volcanoes. In 1880 he made the first ascent of Chimborazo, long mythologised as the world’s highest mountain, and climbed several other high peaks. He took barometric observations, collected biological specimens, and studied altitude illness with the same rigour he brought to climbing.
• Publications and recognition: His results appeared in Travels Amongst the Great Andes of the Equator (with scientific appendices), earning honours from learned societies and cementing his status as a mountaineer who made measured contributions to knowledge, not only records of daring.

Professional life, designs and later years

• Engraving and illustration: Throughout his career he continued to draw and engrave, producing the maps and illustrations for his own books—an unusual degree of authorial control that enhanced their reliability.
• Designs: He popularised practical camp equipment (notably a compact “Whymper tent” for mountain travel) and wrote a short manual on using the aneroid barometer, reflecting his hands-on approach to measurement.
• Personal life: Whymper married late in life and had a daughter. He balanced periods in Britain with long seasons abroad engaged in lecturing, writing and fieldwork.
• Death: He died on 16 September 1911, in Chamonix, after a life spent at altitude and at the writing desk. Memorials and graves in Alpine towns testify to his enduring presence in mountaineering culture.

Character and method

• Temperament: Persistent, exact and sometimes single-minded. He prepared carefully, scouted lines, watched stonefall and snow conditions, and kept detailed notes.
• Partnerships: He could command a rope but was also capable of learning from guides, and he gave them full credit in print—unusual candour for his time.
• Ethics: Whymper’s writing insists on responsibility: understand the mountain, choose companions wisely, and never let ambition outrun conditions.

Legacy

1. Technique and safety: His analyses of the Matterhorn accident and his practical counsel helped normalise a culture of risk management.
2. Literature: Scrambles Amongst the Alps remains a touchstone—lucid, closely observed and free of bombast—still read by climbers, historians and writers.
3. Science at altitude: His Andean programme showed how a mountaineer’s eye, combined with simple instruments and discipline, could yield trustworthy observations about climate, geography and physiology.
4. Public imagination: The Matterhorn ascent—achievement shadowed by tragedy—fixed the Alps in the Victorian mind as a theatre of endeavour rather than mere scenery.

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