§18. "Peaks, passes and glaciers". VII. The Literature of Travel, 1700–1900. Vol. 14. The Victorian Age, Part Two. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two.

VII. The Literature of Travel, 1700–1900.

§ 18. Peaks, passes and glaciers.

One kind of travel, namely Alpine climbing, has produced a copious modern literature—peculiarly British in character—which scarcely goes farther back than the middle of the nineteenth century. Peaks, passes and glaciers, a series of episodes described by different writers, appeared in 1859. The playground of Europe by Sir Leslie Stephen is marked by a peculiar literary distinction. Whymper’s books on the Alps and on the Andes provide plenty of exciting matter. Alpine writing, including the works of living writers and also the pages of The Alpine Journal, is generally of good literary quality, being largely the work of accomplished men whose recreation is Alpine climbing.