Letters by British mountaineer George Mallory, including his last letter to his wife Ruth written during his fatal Everest summit attempt 100 years ago, are now available to the public through a digitisation project by the University of Cambridge.
The collection of letters by Mallory, many of them written to Ruth from their engagement in 1914 until his death on Everest in 1924, includes three letters retrieved from his body, discovered in 1999, the university said. The letters were stuffed in his jacket pocket.
“They offer a fascinating insight into the life of this famous Magdalene alumnus,” said Katy Green, a college archivist at Magdalene College, a constituent college of the university. They include his “poignant last letter to Ruth in which he wrote the chances of scaling Everest were 50-to-1 against” the climbers.
Mallory and fellow climber Andrew Irvine vanished during their 1924 attempt to reach the summit of Everest. They were last seen by a climber on June 8, 1924. Their disappearance remained an enduring mystery even after climbers discovered Mallory’s body a quarter-century ago.
His last letter to Ruth, written on May 27, 1924, says: “Darling, I wish you the best I can — that your anxiety will be at an end before you get this — with the best news. Which will also be the quickest. It is 50 to 1 against us but we’ll have a whack yet & do ourselves proud. Great love to you, Ever your loving, George.”
Magdalene College received the letters from Mallory’s family during the 1980s and 1990s, Green said. The project to digitise them and make them available for anyone to read was taken up 18 months ago ahead of the 100th anniversary of his disappearance.
“He’s such a legend and has been associated with his mysterious death — this collection of over 800 letters is intended for people to get to see his human side,” Green told The Telegraph over the phone.
George Mallory. Sourced by The Telegraph
The digital collection, accessible through the Magdalene College website, contains letters written as well as received by Mallory. The letters recovered from his jacket pocket include one from his brother, one from his sister and one from a family friend.
In a letter to Mallory during the Everest expedition, Ruth wrote: "I am keeping quite cheerful and happy but I do miss you a lot. I think I want your companionship even more than I used to. I know I have rather often been cross and not nice and I am very sorry but the bottom reason has nearly always been because I was unhappy at getting so little of you. I know it is pretty stupid to spoil the times I do have you for those I don't."
Among the topics covered by the letters include Mallory’s first reconnaissance mission to Everest in 1921, and a second mission to determine whether it was even possible to get to Everest’s base, during which an avalanche swept eight Sherpas off the mountain. In his letters, Mallory blamed himself for the accident.
The letters also cover his service in World War I and his 1923 visit to the US in the middle of prohibition during which, at one point, he was served whiskey “through a secret hatch”.
A climber behind Mallory and Irvine who had seen them last had said a blizzard took place on the afternoon they disappeared. Scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada, had in 2010 used historical weather records to suggest that Mallory and Irvine had likely encountered an intense storm as they made their way to the summit.
