The Magician’s Glass – Character and Fate: Eight Essays on Climbing and the Mountain Life

Award-winning writer Douglas presents a collection of eight recent essays on some of the biggest stories and best-known personalities in the world of climbing.

In the title essay, he writes about failure on Annapurna III in 1981, one of the boldest attempts in Himalayan mountaineering on one of the most beautiful line – a line that remains unclimbed to this day.

Douglas writes about bitter controversies, like that surrounding Ueli Steck’s disputed solo ascent of the south face of Annapurna, the fate of Toni Egger on Cerro Torre in 1959 – when Cesare Maestri claimed the pair had made the first ascent, and the rise and fall of Slovenian ace Tomaz Humar. There are profiles of two stars of the 1980s: the much-loved German Kurt Albert, the father of the ‘redpoint’, and the enigmatic rock star Patrick Edlinger, a national hero in his native France who lost his way.

In Crazy Wisdom, Douglas offers fresh perspectives on the impact mountaineering has on local communities and the role climbers play in the developing world. The final essay explores the relationship between art and alpinism as a way of understanding why it is that people climb mountains.

This special, signed edition has a different binding from the unsigned, softcover trade edition and contains an additional signature page with the limitation number and Ed’s signature. Shortlisted for the 2017 Boardman/Tasker Mountaineering Literature Award and the 2018 Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature from the Himalayan Club.