Climbing Days by Dorothy Pilley, Dan Richards in conversation with Helen Mort

A forgotten classic of 1920s mountaineering literature by Dorothy Pilley, which broke new ground for
women in a sport dominated by men - with an introduction from her great-great nephew, Dan Richards. Dan will be in conversation about this astonishing book with Helen Mort.

When Dorothy Pilley first began climbing in the 1910s, female mountaineers were seen as a dangerous liability, their achievements ignored, unrecorded or disbelieved. Undeterred, Dorothy proved herself on the vertiginous slopes of Wales, Scotland and the Lake District before tackling rock faces in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rockies, Mount Fuji and the Himalayas. Her tireless championing of fellow women climbers and her own trailblazing example helped establish female alpinists as serious mountaineers with impressive records on bravery, skill and endurance.

First published in 1935, Climbing Days tells a daredevil tale of adventure, near-death slips and rapturous achievement in high places, interleaved with moments highlighting the particular challenges of being a woman in a sport seen as the province of men.

Sheffield Events Books Talk

The Lineup

Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days (a biography of the amazing life and climbs of his great grand aunt, Dorothy Pilley), and Outpost.
He has written for the Guardian, Economist, Esquire, Monocle, Caught by the River. Dan teaches creative non-fiction at the National Centre for Writing and Arvon Foundation.

His next book, Overnight, is set to be published in March 2025.

Helen Mort is an award-winning author based in Sheffield. She has published three poetry collections (Division Street, 2013 and No Map Could Show Them, 2016) and The Illustrated Woman (2022, shortlisted for the Forward Prize), and has written a novel (Black Car Burning, 2019), a short story collection (Exire, 2019). She also writes drama and creative non fiction.