Queen of the Mountaineers, Cathryn J. Prince
Queen of the Mountaineers, Cathryn J. Prince
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Queen of the Mountaineers
The Trailblazing Life of Fanny Bullock Workman

Author: Cathryn J. Prince

Narrator: Elizabeth Wiley

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/07/2019

Synopsis

Fanny Bullock Workman was a complicated and restless woman who defied the rigid Victorian morals she found as restrictive as a corset. With her frizzy brown hair tucked under a topee, Workman was a force on the mountain and off. Instrumental in breaking the British stranglehold on Himalayan mountain climbing, this American woman climbed more peaks than any of her peers, became the first woman to map the far reaches of the Himalayas, the first woman to lecture at the Sorbonne and the second to address the Royal Geographic Society of London, whose members included Charles Darwin, Richard Francis Burton, and David Livingstone. Her books, replete with photographs, illustrations, and descriptions of meteorological conditions, glaciology, and the effect of high altitudes on humans, remained useful decades after their publication. Paving the way for a legion of female climbers, her legacy lives on in scholarship prizes at Wellesley, Smith, Radcliffe, and Bryn Mawr.
Author and journalist Cathryn J. Prince brings Fanny Bullock Workman to life and deftly shows how she negotiated the male-dominated world of alpine clubs and adventure societies as nimbly as she negotiated the deep crevasses and icy granite walls of the Himalayas. It's the story of the role one woman played in science and exploration, in breaking boundaries and frontiers for women everywhere.

About Cathryn J. Prince

Cathryn J. Prince is the author of American Daredevil, Death in the Baltic, and A Professor, a President, and a Meteor. She has worked as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Switzerland and in New York, where she reported on the United Nations, and is a frequent contributor to the Times of Israel. Prince lives in Weston, Connecticut.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sharon on June 01, 2019

Mountaineers are a crazy lot, like the people who are lining up on the top of Mount Everest to take pictures. But Fanny Bullock Workman may be the fiercest mountaineer of all, and Cathryn Prince tells her story, warts and all. (Workman doesn't have actual warts, but she is not a perfect person eithe......more

Goodreads review by Hazel on December 20, 2022

Embarrassed I hadn't heard of mountaineer Fanny Bullock Workman nor of mountaineer Annie S. Peck who seemed to face even greater financial and other challenges. Well researched and gives insight into the physical challenges of mountaineering at that period. Sad that the women's achievements were pi......more

Goodreads review by Miriam on August 28, 2019

The adventures of Fanny Bullock Workman, born of sturdy New England stock and a rich family, scales the New Hampshire peak of Mt. Washington, and then the highest peaks of the Alps, the Himalayas, and Andes, and other mountain ranges across the world in their decades of exploring. It's a breathless......more

Goodreads review by Ann on September 09, 2019

There’s no method of learning history that’s more fun than a good adventure. Fanny Workman broke a number of records in the late 19th and early 20th century, both in mountaineering and bicycling. This biography follows a woman fighting her way into a man’s world and takes the reader around the world......more

Goodreads review by Audrey on April 10, 2019

I really enjoyed reading this book. I simply couldn't put it down! Well researched and written, Cathryn Prince paints a vivid picture of the life of Fanny Bullock, a pioneer both in her passion for exploration and in women's rights. I enjoyed reading about a strong woman who wasn't afraid to go agai......more

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