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    The Maverick Mountaineer: The Remarkable Life of George Ingle Finch: Climber, Scientist, Inventor
    Unavailable
    The Maverick Mountaineer: The Remarkable Life of George Ingle Finch: Climber, Scientist, Inventor
    Unavailable
    The Maverick Mountaineer: The Remarkable Life of George Ingle Finch: Climber, Scientist, Inventor
    Ebook449 pages6 hours

    The Maverick Mountaineer: The Remarkable Life of George Ingle Finch: Climber, Scientist, Inventor

    By Robert Wainwright

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    WINNER OF THE TIMES 2017 BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR PRIZE
    SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 BOARDMAN TASKER PRIZE FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

    'One of the two best Alpinists of his time - Mallory was the other.' The Times

    In the spring of 1901 a teenager stood on top of a hill, gazed out in wonderment at the Australian landscape and decided he wanted to be a mountaineer. Two decades later, the same man stood in a blizzard beneath the summit of Mount Everest, within sight of his goal to be the first to stand on the roof of the world. George Finch was at the highest point ever reached by a human being and only his decision to save the life of his stricken companion stopped him from reaching the summit.

    George Finch was a rebel of the first order, a man who dared to challenge the British establishment who disliked his independence, background, long hair and lack of an Oxbridge education. Despite this, he not only became one of the world's greatest alpinists, earning the grudging respect of his rival George Mallory, but pioneered the use of the artificial oxygen that enabled Everest to finally be conquered thirty years after his own attempt. A renowned scientist, a World War I hero and a Fellow of the Royal Society, involved in the development of some of the twentieth century's most important inventions, his skills helped save London from burning to the ground during the Blitz. Finch's public accomplishments, however, were shadowed by his complicated private life and his fraught relationship with his son, the actor Peter Finch.

    Acclaimed biographer Robert Wainwright restores George Finch to his rightful place in history with this remarkable tribute to one of the twentieth century's most eccentric anti-heroes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAllen & Unwin
    Release dateJan 1, 2017
    ISBN9781925268430
    Unavailable
    The Maverick Mountaineer: The Remarkable Life of George Ingle Finch: Climber, Scientist, Inventor
    Author

    Robert Wainwright

    Robert Wainwright is a well-known journalist and the author of several topical books. Fascinated by characters and what drives them, he has written books about Rose Porteous, Caroline Byrne, Martin Bryant, Sheila Chisholm, George Ingle Finch and Ian Thorpe. The author of the bestselling Sheila: the Australian beauty who bewitched British society, he lives in London with his wife, Paola Totaro, and their family.

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    • 3/5
      Has all the elements of a fascinating story
    • 5/5
      Terriffic book. Great story a of a maverick Australian climber who, but for the pettiest politics within British climbing ranks, could well have stood upon the summit of Everest in 1924. George Ingle Finch, the (putative, thats a whole other story) father of actor Peter Finch, was a consummate climber and brilliant scientist. The book details his early climbing exploits in the Alps with his brother, and his quest for ever more difficult climbs, stymied by the fact that his abrasive personality and tell it like it is attitude got up the collective noses of the stuffy British climbing establishment, who punished him by ridiculing his belief that bottled oxygen was the way to go in Himalayan climbing and leaving him out of the 1924 Everest expedition after he had attained a then record height on the 1922 trip. This is a terrific read about an adventurous life, Boys Own stuff really. Highly recommended