Michael Burn assumes in this book that the name of Richard Hillary means nothing to present-day readers, so the reviewer had better follow his practice and provide biographical details. Although he was born in Australia shortly after the end of the First World War, Hillary came to England at an early age and had a thoroughly English upper middle-class education - prep school, followed by public school (Shrewsbury) and Oxford (Trinity College). Despite the influence of his English teacher at Shrewsbury, he was more hearty than aesthete and chiefly distinguished himself at Trinity by his feats on the river. As he later put it, 'I went up for my first term, determined, without over-exertion, to row myself into the government of the Sudan, that country of blacks ruled by Blues in which my father had spent so many years.'

LRB 5 May 1988 | PDF Download