author
Owen Glynne Jones
1867–1899
Best remembered as a brilliant young climber, he helped turn late Victorian rock climbing into something bolder, more technical, and vividly written about. His classic book on the Lake District helped capture both the danger and the joy of the sport.
1 Audiobook
Rock-climbing in the English Lake District Third Edition
by Owen Glynne Jones
About the author
Born in London to Welsh parents in 1867, Owen Glynne Jones became known as a Welsh rock-climber, mountaineer, and schoolteacher. Reliable biographical sources agree that he built a reputation for pioneering new routes, especially in the English Lake District, and that his climbing was closely associated with the brothers George and Ashley Abraham, whose photographs helped preserve that era of mountaineering.
He is also remembered as the author of Rock-climbing in the English Lake District, first published in the 1890s and still noted as an important early climbing book. The writing stands out for combining practical knowledge with a lively sense of adventure, which helped give rock climbing a stronger literary voice as well as a sporting one.
His life was short: he died in 1899 in the Alps, on Dent Blanche, when he was only 31. Even so, his influence lasted far beyond his lifetime, both through the routes he opened and through a book that remained a landmark in British climbing literature.