SALKELD, Audrey 1936

PERSONAL:

Born March 11, 1936 in London, England; married; children: three sons.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, National Geographic Society, 1145 17th St. N.W., Washington, DC 20036-4688. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Author, historian, and mountaineer. NOVA/Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Online Adventure IMAX Everest Expedition, reporter with the expedition; IMAX film Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa, member of expedition team.

MEMBER:

Royal Geographical Society (fellow), Alpine Club.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grand Prize, Banff Mountain Literature Festival, 1994 and 1998; Boardman Tasker Award, 1996; Award for Excellence in Alpine Literature, American Alpine Club, 1999.

WRITINGS:

(With Tom Holzel) First on Everest: The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, H. Holt (New York, NY), 1986, revised edition published as The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine,, with a new foreword by Eric Simonson, Mountaineers (Seattle, WA), 1999.

(Compiler, with Rosie Smith) One Step in the Clouds: An Omnibus of Mountaineering Novels and Short Stories, Sierra Club Books (San Francisco, CA), 1991.

People in High Places: Approaches to Tibet, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 1991.

(Picture researcher) Everest: The Best Writing and Pictures from Seventy Years of Human Endeavour, edited by Peter Gillman, foreword by Sir Edmund Hillary, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1993.

Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, Pimlico (London, England), 1997.

(With David Breashears) Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory, foreword by John Mallory, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 1999.

Mystery on Everest: A Photobiography of George Mallory, foreword by Conrad Anker, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2000.

(With Martin Uitz) Der Berg Ruft, Verlag A. Pustet (Salzburg, Austria), 2000.

Kilamanjaro: To the Roof of Africa, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2002.

Climbing Everest: Tales of Triumph and Tragedy on the World's Highest Mountain (for children), National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2003.

EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTOR

The Climber's Handbook, Sierra Club Books (San Francisco, CA), 1987.

(With José Luis Bermúdez) On the Edge of Europe: Mountaineering in the Caucasus, Mountaineers (Seattle, WA), 1993.

Heroic Climbs: A Celebration of World Mountaineering, Mountaineers (Seattle, WA), 1994.

World Mountaineering, foreword by Chris Bonington, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1998.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Development and scriptwriting for various adventure documentaries.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian and mountaineer Audrey Salkeld has written and edited numerous adult and children's books that focus on mountain climbing. Salkeld has also been a member of three prominent mountaineering expeditions: a trek to the Tibetan north side of Mount Everest to search for the remains of explorers George Mallory and Andre Irvine, the NOVA/Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) IMAX Everest Expedition, broadcast through NOVA Online, and the mission that led to the IMAX film Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa. Many of Salkeld's books have dealt with British climbing legend Mallory, including her first book, First on Everest: The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, which was subsequently revised and published as The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine. Coauthored with American mountaineer Tom Holzel, the book deals with the 1924 disappearance of Mallory and his climbing partner Irvine, while they were climbing Mount Everest. The two climbers were attempting to become the first men to ever reach Everest's summit. The last time the two climbers were spotted was on the afternoon of June 8, by climber Noel Odell, who claimed he saw them on what is known as the "second step." The second step is located at 28,230 feet, less than one thousand vertical feet from the summit, which is at 29,035 ft. Just moments after Odell spotted the climbers, a cover of clouds enveloped Mallory and Irvine, and they were never seen again. Since then, an ongoing debate has ensued about whether or not Mallory and Irvine actually made it to the summit of Mount Everest before perishing. If they did, they predated by twenty-nine years the first recognized ascent of the mountain by Sir Edmund Hillary and the sherpa who scaled Everest with him, Tenzing Norgay.

In their book, Salkeld and Holzel detail the reconnaissance expedition Mallory made to Mount Everest in 1921, and his companion's attempts to reach the summit in 1924. Mallory's life outside of mountaineering is also broached. The book recounts one of the hottest debates in mountaineering during the 1920s: whether or not to use supplemental oxygen tanks to ensure survival at such high altitudes. Library Journal contributor Paula M. Strain called the book "useful as a new and closer look at an early 20th-century hero."

Salkeld revisited the controversy surrounding Mallory's reaching the summit in the 1999 book Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory, coauthored with mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears. The book looks at Mallory's three attempts to climb Everest during the 1920s. In addition to the narrative, the book is amply illustrated with maps, charts, and vintage photographs taken by Mallory and others. Reviewer Susan Reed, writing in the New York Times Book Review, found the book to be "a retread of previously published material, although with wonderful period photographs of the 1920's expeditions." A contributor to the Economist noted, "The book derives some authority from the authors' original research and benefits from the hours they spent sifting through the attics of descendants of other expedition members for personal diaries and photographs that were never part of the official record." Writing in Sports Illustrated, Ron Fimrite called the book "the definitive account" of Mallory's attempts to scale Everest. A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that "this breathtakingly illustrated volume unfolds as a vivid, engaging pictorial documentary, offering an incredible armchair adventure on the roof of the world."

Salkeld returned to her fascination with Everest and Mallory with her 2003 children's book Climbing Everest: Tales of Triumph and Tragedy on the World's Highest Mountain. Writing in Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books, Deborah Stevenson noted, "Her approach here has a sufficiently fresh focus to make it worthwhile." Stevenson also commented that through the use of sidebars, Salkeld is able to "tackle head-on some issues that are ignored or briefly alluded to in other Everest volumes," such as how the climbing of Mount Everest has had an economic impact on the region and on the sherpas who guide many of the mountaineers to the highest peak in the world.

In addition to her books about Mallory and Everest, Salkeld has written about mountaineering in other regions, including the highest mountain range in Europe. In 1993's On the Edge of Europe: Mountaineering in the Caucasus, Salked and coauthor José Luis Bermúdez write about the climbers who, having conquered the Alps, began to assault the main peaks of the Caucasus between 1868 and 1914. The authors also include important climbs up to 1986. John Neill, writing in the Geographical Journal, praised the authors for reprinting climbing journal articles about these important ascents and noted that they provide "excellent accounts of how these fit in to the general history of climbing in the range."

In 1997 Salkeld penned the biography Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl. The book was inspired by Riefenstahl's early films about mountain climbing, and provides an in-depth look at the complex and notorious German filmmaker. During the 1930s Riefenstahl was the most accomplished and artistic propaganda filmmaker for Adolf Hitler's Nazi movement. Although Riefenstahl claimed that when she made her classic propaganda film Triumph of the Will, she was naive about Hitler's objectives and the Third Reich's treatment of Jews, few believed her. As a result, she remained a virtual outcast after World War II, failing to find a relevant role in international filmmaking.

New Statesman contributor Lizzie Francke commented that Salkeld handled the issue of why Riefenstahl never fled Nazi Germany "with sensitivity, and while she does not exonerate Riefenstahl, she certainly attempts to give her complicated career a slightly more forgiving context." Reviewer Gitta Sereny, writing in the London Observer, noted: "Audrey Salkeld who—let me say it right away—has written a wonderful book, was manifestly not taken in for a minute by Riefenstahl's retrospective fantasies." Sereny went on to call the book a "sensitive but highly intelligent biography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 1991, John Brosnahan, review of One Step in the Clouds: An Omnibus of Mountaineering Fiction, p. 1173; November, 2000, Carolyn Phelan, review of Mystery on Everest: A Photobiography of George Mallory, p. 533.

Boston Globe, July, 15, 2001, Peter F. Neumeyer, review of Mystery on Everest: A Photobiography of George Mallory, p. D5.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 2003, Deborah Stevenson, review of Climbing Everest: Tales of Triumph and Tragedy on the World's Highest Mountain, pp. 32-33.

Economist, July 15, 2000, review of Last Climb: The Legendary Everest Expeditions of George Mallory, p. 81.

Geographical Journal (London, England), March, 1994, review of People in High Places: Approaches to Tibet, p. 103; March, 1995, John Neill, review of On the Edge of Europe: Mountaineering in the Caucasus, p. 101.

Geographical Magazine, November, 1998, Melanie Train, review of World Mountaineering, p. 84.

Library Journal, December, 1986, Paula M. Strain, review of First on Everest: The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine, p. 109; May 1, 1987, Thomas K. Fry, review of The Climber's Handbook, p. 78.

Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1999, review of Last Climb, p. B9.

New Statesman, July 19, 1996, Lizzie Francke, review of Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, p. 46.

New York Times Book Review, February 1, 1987, James Wickwire, review of First on Everest, p. 21; December 5, 1999, Susan Reed, review of Last Climb, p. 32.

Observer (London, England), July 7, 1996, Gitta Sereny, review of Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, October 24, 1986, review of First on Everest, p. 66; September 27, 1999, review of Last Climb, p. 88.

Reading Teacher, March, 2001, Cyundi Giorgis, review of Mystery on Everest, pp. 637-638.

School Library Journal, November, 2000, Patricia Manning, review of Mystery on Everest, p. 175.

Sports Illustrated, November 29, 1999, Ron Fimrite, review of Last Climb, p. R22.

Times Literary Supplement (London, England), Glen Newey, review of Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, p. 31.

Washington Post Book World, March 31, 1991, review of One Step in the Clouds: An Omnibus of Mountaineering Fiction, p. 13.