Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

Paul Preuss: Lord of the Abyss: Life and Death at the Birth of Free-Climbing

by David Smart
Sold out
₹3,116.00
Original price ₹3,116.00
Original price ₹3,116.00
₹3,116.00
Current price ₹3,116.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Hardcover
  • ISBN13: 9781771603232
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Rocky Mountain Books Incorporated
  • Publisher Imprint: Rocky Mountain Books Incorporated
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 248
  • Original Price: USD 32.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: New ed
  • Item Weight: 477 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Adventurers & Explorers

Shortlisted for the 2019 Boardman Tasker Award

Shortlisted for the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Award for Mountain Literature

An intriguing biography of the renowned Austrian alpinist Paul Preuss, who achieved international recognition both for his remarkable solo ascents and for his advocacy of an ethically "pure" alpinism (meaning without any artificial aids).

In the months before his death in 1913, from falling more than 300 metres during an attempt to make the first free solo ascent of the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel, Paul Preuss's public presentations on his climbing adventures filled concert halls in Austria, Italy, and Germany.

George Mallory, the famed English mountaineer who died on Mount Everest in 1924, said "no one will ever equal Preuss."

Reinhold Messner, the first climber to ascend all fourteen 8000 metre peaks, was so impressed by the young Austrian's achievements that he built a mountaineering museum around Preuss's piton hammer, wrote two books (in German) about him and instituted a foundation in Preuss's name.

Alex Honnold, the first and only person to free solo El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, has thought about Preuss' untimely and surprising death and imagined it to have likely been "the worst four seconds" of Preuss' life.

Although he died at only 27 years old, modern climbing may never have developed the ethical, existential core that it has today if not for Preuss's bold style. Even the most trenchant traditionalists remain unsure about whether to add him to their pantheon or dismiss him as at worst a lunatic or at best an indelicate subject better left ignored.

Smart's biography is the first English language volume to be published and is certain to bring the remarkable story of Paul Preuss to a whole new generation of climbers.

David Smart is the editorial director of Gripped Publishing and founding editor of four magazines, including Gripped, Canada's Climbing Magazine. He is the author of five climbing guidebooks and numerous articles in both the Canadian Alpine Journal and Climbing magazine, as well as two novels and the memoir A Youth Wasted Climbing. David lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us