Girdlestone (Arthur Gilbert). The high Alps without guides: being a narrative of adventures in Switzerland. London, Longmans, Green and Co, 1870. In-8°, publisher's full blue cloth binding, cold-stamped decoration on boards, gilt title on spine. First edition, illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece after Whymper and 2 fold-out maps. Accounts of ascents and innovative considerations for the time in favour of mountaineering without a guide. The Reverend H. G. Girdlestone (1842-1908) was a mediocre mountaineer and had many misadventures in the Alps. This did not prevent him from advocating unguided mountaineering in his book, which went against the trend of the time, and was not well received by the Alpine Club. An important and rare work, interesting for understanding the debates that governed the development of mountaineering at the end of the nineteenth century. Perret, 1947 - Neate