The K2 Man (and his Molluscs)

The Extraordinary Life of Godwin-Austen

`Probably the greatest mountaineer of his day,` claimed Kenneth Mason in his
definitive mountaineering history, Abode of Snow. Haversham Godwin-Austen
(1834-1923), from an ancient and interesting Surrey aristocratic family with
royal connections, not only found the first way to the `savage mountain`, K2,
but went on to be the first serious explorer of the Karakoram, Ladakh, Western
Tibet, Bhutan, Northern Burma and Assam. He broke the Asiatic high-altitude
mountaineering record three times, using a `garden hatchet` as an ice-axe, saw
his assistant killed by headhunters and socialised with everyone from his
`coolies` to the Maharajah of Kashmir. Back in England, he became one of the
UK`s greatest Natural Historians, a Darwinist collector among collectors of
geological and ornithological specimens. His collection of freshwater molluscs
forms the basis of all modern science in the subject. And he became one of the
UK`s greatest surveyors, covering over 22,000 square miles of new territory,
including 23 new glaciers and at least two dozen first ascents of peaks over
5000m.

Remarkably, he also found time to paint a vast portfolio of watercolours,
including the first close sighting of K2, described by the British Library as
a `national treasure`. (Several of these watercolours are illustrated in this
book.) His personal life was equally interesting: three marriages – to an
Afghan landowner`s daughter, an English socialite, then a civil servant`s
daughter 23 years younger than himself – was complicated by religious
conversions from Anglicanism to Islam then to Buddhism. His strong character
as a scholar at great London institutions such as the Natural History Museum
is still the stuff of legend, while his bankruptcy in later life required the
selling of the `family pile`, the magnificent, royally-furnished Shalford
Park.

And thanks to a youthful indiscretion in Kashmir, he harboured a dark secret
which came back to haunt him near the end of his long and colourful life. This
is the first and authorised biography of an outstanding man. Godwin-Austen`s
private papers are being made public for the first time. They prove that he
was one of the UK`s greatest explorers, on a par with Sir Richard Burton, and
surpassing the explorations of David Livingstone, Captain Cook or Captain
Scott. For mountaineers, scientists, students of biography and historians of
the Raj and the Great Game, this biography offers new and and original
material – a `must` for the explorer`s bookshelf.