A guide to guides! Probably only of interest to those who collect climbing guidebooks rather than climbs, but a painstaking work detailing every single edition, reprint and minor variation of every guidebook to climbing in Great Britain ever published. Possible monotony is relieved by numerous colour illustrations of... guidebooks!
The history of British climbing guidebooks is as long and as venerable as the history of climbing itself. The early pioneers of the sport, the tweed-clad Victorian cragsmen, were as concerned about recording their activities as they were about doing them and thus began the climbing guidebook. We now have over a century of the finest guidebooks in the world, a written heritage second to none.
British and Irish Climbing Guidebooks 1894 to 2011 lists over 1,000 guidebooks, from the simple recordings of the earliest pioneers to the latest photo and topo filled blockbusters. Front cover images and publication details for each title show the development of climbing guidebooks over the decades in a unique format. For anyone with an interest in how our sport has been recorded, from casual history lovers to serious collectors, this is an essential guide.
By Alan Moss.
Card cover, 23cm x 15.5cm, 368 pages.
Published 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-9039082-9-0.
Includes a 21 page 2013 Supplement containing details of new guides and a few omissions.
A PDF supplement to the 2013 Supplement is available as a Free Download.