Jeffrey Archer Discredits Sir Edmund Hillary In ''

By Staff

Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 10:25

The renowned author and ex UK politician, Jeffrey Archer, in his novel '' has pulled Sir Edmund Hillary's leg regarding his legacy.

The fiction based on the life of George Mallory who passed away on Mt.Everest in 1924, 29 years before Hillary along with the Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made to the tallest peak according to the reports of NZPA.

Many of the admirers of Mallory who feel that Mallory had made it to the summit who was last seen just a few hundred meters below the summit and died shortly afterwards, deserves the credit attributed to Hillary as well

Jeffrey Archer's new tome concludes with Mallory becoming the "first man to stand on top of the earth" has again stoked the rumours of whether Mallory would have been much ahead of Hillary in making history even before 29 years.

However, Graeme Dingle, fellow mountaineer and friend of Hillary said of Archer's premise: "He's dreaming. There's essentially no chance Mallory got to the top. All the evidence points to them not making it." He also went on to say that Archer portrayed Mallory as the first to summit the mountain was none the less the outcome of an wounded English pride at being outwon by a colonial.

"The English were desperate to get to the top and they didn't get there, even in 1953. I think the English are pretty sensitive about it. They've got nothing to be ashamed about, they had a lot of glorious failures," he added.

In 2001, Archer's political career came to a disgraced end in Britain for having found guilty of perjury and he was sentenced to four years in jail.