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Men, women and mountains. Days in the Alps and Pyrenees ... Foreword by Lord Sankey, G.B.E.

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First edition, presented by William Bellows (1873-1942) to the distinguished Italian Alpinist, writer and photographer, Guido Rey (1861-1935).

Printer, publisher and French scholar, Bellows joined the Alpine Club in 1926. The following year he and his party nearly lost their lives on the Matterhorn in a violent storm on the summit. ‘They fought their way down to the Italian hut where, in order to restore their frozen limbs, a chair had to be chopped up to provide fuel. On arrival in Breuil ... [Bellows’] friend Guido Rey would not believe that anyone could have come over the mountain in such weather’ (Alpine Journal obituary). During the First World War, Bellows worked at the Ministry of Propaganda, ‘where he collaborated with such men as John Buchan, Ian Hay, Arnold Bennett and Sir Edmund Gosse’ (ibid.).

Rey is particularly noted for his ascents of the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc. His published works include Il monte Cervino (1904) and Alpinismo acrobatico (1914).

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