Dorothy Pilley Richards
Dorothy Pilley Richards | |
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![]() Dorothy Pilley – Secretary of the British Women's Patriotic League, c. 1922 | |
Born | Dorothy Eleanor Pilley |
Occupation(s) | Mountaineer, writer |
Notable work | Climbing Days, 1935 |
Dorothy Pilley Richards (16 September 1894 in Camberwell, London – 24 September 1986 in Cambridge) was a prominent mountaineer. She attended Queenwood Ladies' College and went on a climbing tour with fellow student Bryher (novelist)[1] in Wales and around this time joined the Fell & Rock Climbing Club, later helping found the Pinnacle Club in 1921.
In the 1920s, she climbed extensively in the Alps, Britain, and North America after her marriage to educator, literary critic and rhetorician, I.A. Richards.
In 1928, she made the celebrated first ascent of the north north west ridge of the Dent Blanche in the Swiss Alps, with Joseph Georges, Antoine Georges and her husband,[2] which she described in her well-regarded memoir, Climbing Days (1935)[3] – republished by Canongate Books in 2024.[4]
Pilley's great-great-nephew Dan Richards has written a biography of her, published by Faber and Faber in 2016 and also titled Climbing Days.[5][6]
References
[edit]- ^ Bryher. The Heart to Artemis. Harcourt, Brace & World.
- ^ Alpine Club Guide Books: Pennine Alps Central (1st ed.). Alpine Club, London. 1975. pp. 107–109. ISBN 090052314X.
- ^ Dorothy Pilley Richards (1935). Climbing Days (1st ed.). London: G. Bell and Sons.
- ^ Dorothy Pilley Richards (July 2024). Climbing Days (Canon ed.). Canongate Books. ISBN 9781805302537.
- ^ Dan Richards. Climbing Days. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0571311934. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
- ^ Katharine Norbury (26 June 2016). Book of the Day: Climbing Days by Dan Richards – review The Guardian
Sources
[edit]- Dorothy Pilley (Mrs. I. A. Richards), Climbing Days (London: Bell, 1935)
- Carol A. Osborne, "Richards , Dorothy Eleanor (1894–1986)" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
Gallery
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Dorothy Pilley c.1926
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Dorothy Pilley & I.A. Richards - passport photographs 1920s
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I.A. Richards, Joseph Georges and Dorothy Pilley - Bertol, Switzerland, 1928 (Antoine Georges)
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Canongate 'Canon' reissue of Dorothy Pilley's Climbing Days, 2024