The adventures began in the late eighteenth century, when French and Swiss scientists tackled the peaks, seeking knowledge of the atmosphere, the earth's origins, and glaciers. In the 1850s, this scientific pursuit became an obsessive competition as British climbers vied with one another to conquer ever higher and more impossible mountains. They fought each other on the peaks and in the press, entertaining a vast public smitten with their bravery, delighted by their personal animosities, and horrified by the disasters that befell them.

The great mountains fell one by one to these climbers, while the glaciers accumulated a store of mangled bodies. The conquest of the Alps, a central chapter in the history of mountaineering, is a hair-raising and thrillingly eccentric tale, captured here by a remarkable storyteller.