The Moth and the Mountain

Reviews / Votes

'The Moth and the Mountain is a gorgeous and deeply affecting book: a tale of tragedy and obsession, pluck and luck, told at the pace of a thriller and bursting with heart. Ed Caesar deploys every ounce of his considerable journalistic skill as he uncovers the true story of a great British eccentric driven by forces he only partly understands to the ends of the earth. This book deserves to be counted alongside Wade Davis' Into The Silence as one of the best ever written about the early attempts to conquer Everest. It is a fine, fine slice of history by a truly special writer who proves time and time again that he is among the best of his generation' -- Dan Jones, author of <i>The Plantagenets</i> 'Ed Caesar has written a slim, ravishing chronicle that is absolutely bursting with life - doomed romance, the dread of the battlefield, the lure of adventure, hair-raising tales of amateur aviation, and, above all, the beauty and madness of the quest to ascend Earth's tallest summit. Maurice Wilson is as rich and full of surprise and contradiction as a character in a novel, and through painstaking historical research, Caesar brings his hero back to vivid life in all his messy, inspiring, ultimately tragic glory. A major feat of reporting and elegant storytelling' -- Patrick Radden Keefe, author of the Orwell Prize-winning <i>Say Nothing</i> 'The Moth and the Mountain is gripping and exquisite. A mad, magnificent, and moving tale' -- Philippe Sands, author of <i>East West Street</i> 'A story of adventure and war, of eccentricity and courage, of love and secrets and of the overwhelming urge one man had to climb the world's highest mountain. Ed Caesar writes like a dream, beautifully piecing together Maurice Wilson's life with compassion and intelligence. It's hard to imagine a finer tribute to one of Everest's forgotten heroes' -- Elizabeth Day 'A towering, tragic tale rescued from oblivion by Ed Caesar's magnificent writing' -- Dan Snow 'Maurice Wilson was an amazing human being. Passionate, heroic, hilariously deluded, inspired, brave to the point of lunacy, determined, war damaged, lovelorn and gloriously unhinged. The Moth and the Mountain is a wonderful, elegiac account of an extraordinary life written with a wry, compassionate humour. It is clear that Ed Caesar loves his hero. I think I do too' -- Joe Simpson, author of <i>Touching the Void</i> 'The adventurer Maurice Wilson was a forgotten figure until Ed Caesar's brilliantly written book restored him to his rightful place in the annals of exploration... Caesar's book received enormous praise on publication last year and rightly so. This splendid tale is every bit as exciting as any adventure novel and deeply moving' -- Alex Larman * Observer * 'This bonkers ripping yarn of derring-don't is a hell of a ride ... scrupulously researched ... Maurice Wilson was a one-off, quite outside the ordinary run of people, and The Moth and the Mountain is a "sorry, beautiful, melancholy, crazy" tribute to a man who, like a leaf in autumn, burnt brightest just before he fell' -- John Self * The Times * 'An urgent and humane story that invites not mockery of a madman, but pity and admiration. A small classic of the biographer's art' -- James McConnachie * The Sunday Times * 'What, in any hands, would be a remarkable story of derring-do becomes, thanks to Ed Caesar, a much deeper, affecting study of one marvellous eccentric and the forces that drove him to attempt the impossible. Magnificent' * The Times * 'Caesar is a journalist with a novelist's eye for character ... Wilson's story is bonkers, but also beautiful. The profile Caesar builds is compelling, colourful and warm - of a complex, contradictory man with admirable self-belief and a healthy disregard for class boundaries and national borders' (Book of the Week) -- Sam Wollaston * Guardian * 'A riveting tale of trauma, spiritual awakening and postwar derring-do ... a gem of a book ... meticulously researched' (Book of the Week) * Observer * ? 'The extraordinary story of how [Wilson] learned to fly and then undertook an epic solo journey to India in his flimsy Gypsy Moth plane is brilliantly told in this slim but captivating book... a testament to good old-fashioned British pluck' * Mail on Sunday * 'For anyone looking for a moment of escape from the mayhem of our world, this is a tremendous tale of adventure' -- David Grann, author of <i>Killers of the Flower Moon</i> 'I have a perhaps unhealthy love for books in which strange, solitary people wander into oblivion, and Ed Caesar's The Moth and the Mountain is one of the finest of the genre. A brilliant feat of storytelling and compassion' -- Alex Ross, author of <i>The Rest is Noise</i> 'Meticulously reported, sublimely crafted ... both a gripping portrait of one man and a moving meditation on how stories can help us understand even the most elusive events and characters' * I News * 'A rollicking biography of an eccentric adventurer, and a sensitive study of the pressures that drove him ... unlike the airy and ill-prepared Wilson, Mr Caesar, a journalist at the New Yorker, grounds his story in patient archival sleuthing. Marrying extracts from Wilson's letters and diaries with lively prose, he winningly conveys the glamour and contradictions of this outlandish figure, bringing cinematic vividness to his escapades' * Economist * 'An outstanding book . . . The Moth and the Mountain returns readers to a romantic era when Everest was terra nova rather than an experience to be bought . . . the author, a contributing writer for the New Yorker, is a talented storyteller with a flair for detail. . . Wilson's story is an entry less in the annals of mountaineering than in the Book of Life. That such an extraordinary person even existed is cause for celebration' * Wall Street Journal * 'Caesar delivers an evocative portrait of the life and times of British adventurer Maurice Wilson, who captivated the public's attention with his doomed attempt to climb Mount Everest in 1934 ... Caesar skilfully explores the political, intellectual, and spiritual movements of the era, as well as Wilson's psychic scars from the war ... this entertaining, well-researched chronicle is a valuable addition to mountaineering history' * Publisher's Weekly * 'A wonderful adventure story, beautifully told. Based on years of painstaking archival research, Ed Caesar's The Moth and the Mountain brings us a modern-day myth with a beguiling, impossible hero from a vanished era of empire, one man on an epic quest that is by turns gripping and heartbreaking' -- Adam Higginbotham, author of <i>Midnight in Chernobyl</i> 'The Moth and the Mountain is a gripping story of heroism, adventure, madness and thwarted love, told with extraordinary empathy and intelligence. Ed Caesar is a writer of rare style and depth, and he has written a great and moving work of non-fiction' -- Mark O'Connell, Wellcome Book Prize-winning author of <i>To Be a Machine</i> and <i>Notes from an Apocalypse</i> 'In the 1930s, an Englishman, Maurice Wilson - a traumatized veteran of the Great War - decided he would fly to Mount Everest, crash-land on the slopes and climb to the summit alone. (Never mind that he was a novice pilot and had never climbed a mountain.) It's not a spoiler to say that things didn't go well, but Caesar puts the man, and his quest, in historical context' -- <i>New York Times</i>, 'New Books to Watch Out For' 'The New Yorker's Ed Caesar is one of the great narrative journalists writing today, and this remarkable book is a beautifully-crafted page-turner. What compelled Maurice Wilson to board a fragile plane in 1933, with the intention of flying to Everest and climbing to its summit? Eccentricity, genius, an inter-war yearning for escape? You'll be gripped to the very last sentence' -- Matthew D'Ancona * Tortoise * 'An engrossing biography ... credit to Caesar for rescuing such a splendid tale of an engaging maverick from the footnotes of Everest history. * Spectator * 'Praise is due to Ed Caesar for managing to tell this tale so well, because the sheer madness of Wilson's life would surely have thrown off all but the most sure-footed biographer. Caesar sets about it with fantastic energy and makes use of a marvellous collage of letters, diary entries, poetry, telegrams, interviews and archival iced gems. He is to be applauded for giving romantic, adamantine, lion-hearted Maurice Wilson his overdue day in the sun' -- Dan Richards * Literary Review * 'Why climb the world's highest mountain? For King and Country; for the glory of God; because it is there. Or, as for Maurice Wilson, because of an unhappy love affair, a wartime trauma, and a longing to get away from a life whose values are measured at the cash register. In Ed Caesar's telling, the hapless, defiant Wilson becomes an unexpected hero - an unforgettable inspiration for anyone who chafes at the limits of ordinary life' -- Benjamin Moser. Pulitzer Prize-winning author of <i>Sontag</i> 'Gripping at every turn ... it's impossible not to root for Wilson' * Outside * 'Engagingly depicts Wilson and his times in ebullient and well-written prose ... a widely appealing and affecting character study, microhistory, story of love and loss, and inquiry into some surprising effects of trauma and personal tragedy' * Booklist * 'Riveting... Caesar's biographical tale of Wilson rightly restores a footnoted figure of alpine history to the storied peaks of Mount Everest, where his body lays still today' * InsideHook * 'A page turner of a book ... a masterclass in research' * The Moth *