Narrative of a Journey to the Summit of Mont Blanc

Howard, William, 1793-1834Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
54K words
Chapters
6

Tags

English Originals Travel Mont BlancMountaineeringNature ObservationAdventure JourneyCourageDocumentary NarrativeExotic Culture

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Narrative of a Journey to the Summit of Mont Blanc by William HowardAuthor: Howard, William, 1793-1834,Language: English, Class: DQ: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Switzerland, Release Date: Jun 15, 2010

Editor's review

This is a short nineteenth-century mountaineering narrative recording the author's actual observations and feelings during an ascent of Mont Blanc. Its value lies not in offering a modern climbing guide but in giving readers direct access to an early Alpine adventure narrative: the hardships of the route, the uncontrollability of weather and terrain, the role of guides and companions, and the mixed emotions of the summit moment are all presented in a plain first-person voice. The writing bears the marks of its age, with a slow pace and detailed description; it is best read as a historical document rather than as a thrilling adventure story. As you read, note how the author observes glaciers, rock faces, and mountain villages, and how he understands the relationship between humankind and nature. For readers studying the history of mountaineering, travel literature, or nineteenth-century European social life, this small book offers plain and reliable primary material; for general readers it is better read in quiet moments, in installments, with maps or geographical background to appreciate the awe and patience of early travelers facing high mountains.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Look up the location of Mont Blanc and Chamonix before starting, to build a sense of space.
  2. Read in stages by leg of the journey, reviewing after each the difficulties the author met and how he dealt with them.
  3. Mark unfamiliar place names or climbing terms and look them up together after each chapter.
  4. Read alongside a map or a chronology of mountaineering history to place the text in its historical context.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6

FAQ

Is this book a modern mountaineering guide? No. It is a nineteenth-century mountaineering narrative that mainly records the author's personal experience and observations on an ascent of Mont Blanc; it contains no modern routes, equipment, or safety guidance and is best read as a historical document and travel literature.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for learning English? The text is nineteenth-century English, with fairly long sentences and dense description; the vocabulary is not especially obscure, but the style is distant from modern English. Readers with some foundation in English who are willing to read slowly can use it for reading practice, preferably with notes and a dictionary.
Do I need prior mountaineering knowledge to read this book? No specialist knowledge is needed. A basic sense of Mont Blanc's location and the general background of early Alpine mountaineering is enough; the book's descriptions of the route and environment supply their own context, and following the narrative is sufficient to understand it.

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About the author

Howard, William, 1793-1834 Author

William Howard (1793–1834) is the author of Narrative of a Journey to the Summit of Mont Blanc, the only work by him currently held in this collection. Public information about his nationality, life, and career is limited, so his biographical details cannot be reliably established; his writing can be understood mainly through this travel narrative itself. The book gives a first-person account of a journey to the summit of Mont Blanc and belongs to the early nineteenth-century tradition of Alpine mountaineering narratives: the author describes glaciers, snow slopes, and mountain weather as an eyewitness, and records the route, cooperation with guides, and his observations and feelings during the ascent. Such works offered contemporary readers firsthand information about high-mountain geography and climbing practice, while also reflecting the curiosity and awe with which travelers of the period regarded natural landscapes. Howard's prose is plain and concrete, attentive to the order of the journey and to practical observation, with little rhetorical embellishment; its value lies chiefly in a faithful record of a particular climbing experience and in its usefulness for the study of early Mont Blanc ascents and the travel narrative as a genre.