Long recognised as one of Britain's finest mountain writers, this collection brings together the best of Jim Perrin's essays and articles on climbing.
Perrin has selected these from four decades of describing and commenting on the experience of rock-climbing and the characters of the climbing community and includes rare, uncollected pieces, substantial new essays, ones that have been long out of print, and a lengthy and frank autobiographical introduction from one of the wild and subversive cult and grassroots figures of the British sport.
Contents: Introduction: by Robert Macfarlane (author of Guardian First Book Award-winner Mountains of the Mind)
1: Streets, Outcrops, Space: A Personal Journey
2: The Climbs: Street Illegal; The Gate of Horn; Right Unconquerable; Fictive Heroes; Visions and Virians; Three Cornish Climbs; Cathy Powell; Fools Rush In; Fantan B; Small Climbs in Germany; Hubris; The True & Authentick History of Fachwen; The Great Crack; Small Local Difficulties; Day Trip to Dalkey; A Note on Commitment; Lizards & Rampant ; Hippos; Handy Pandy; Bogles & Bog-trots; In Dreams Begins Responsibility.
3: The Climbers: Paul Williams; Joe Brown; Will Perrin; Stevie Haston; Al Harris; H.W.Tilman;
Batso & the American Dream; John Hoyland; Pat Littlejohn; Robin Hodgkin; Peter Biven; Dave Cook; Johnny Lees; My Last Climb with George Homer; John Syrett; The Ice-climbers; Eric Shipton; Jack Longland; John Redhead.
4: Ascent: Eating Bear Meat; Trains, Cafes, Conversations; The Way the Holds Run; Fear is the Spur; Contumely of the Conquistadors; Grace; The Lost and Perfect Hold; Grade Drift; The Night Moves; The Way You Climb is the Way You Are; Fictions; Person/Product/Practise; Silk of the Body; No Success Like Failure; Base Camps; The Way & the Outcrop; Very Severe; In Praise of Competence; Image/Imagine; Working on the Rope Moves; Ours; A Valediction (Forbidding Mourning); Rain; Charming Cracks; The Overgrown; Confidence; Moves; Version and Verse; "Denn bleiben ist nirgends"; Kaleidoscope of the Senses; For Arnold Pines.