Dorothy Pilley Richards

Dorothy Pilley Richards
Dorothy Pilley – Secretary of the British Women's Patriotic League, c. 1922
Born	Dorothy Eleanor Pilley (1894-09-16)16 September 1894 Camberwell, South London, England
Died	24 September 1986(1986-09-24) (aged 92) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Occupation(s)	Mountaineer, writer
Notable work	Climbing Days (1935)
Spouse	I. A. Richards ​ ​ (m. 1926; died 1979)​

Dorothy Pilley Richards (16 September 1894 – 24 September 1986) was a prominent mountaineer. She attended Queenwood Ladies' College and went on a climbing tour with fellow student Bryher[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

1. Bryher (1962). The Heart to Artemis: A Writer's Memoirs. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. ISBN 978-1-930-46408-7. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
2. Collomb, Robin G. (1975). Pennine Alps Central (1st ed.). Alpine Club, London. pp. 107–109. ISBN 978-0-900-52314-4.
3. Pilley, Dorothy (1935). Climbing Days (1st ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
4. Pilley, Dorothy (2024). Climbing Days (Canongate ed.). Canongate Books. ISBN 978-1-805-30253-7.
5. Richards, Dan (16 June 2016). Climbing Days. London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-31193-4. Archived from the original on 17 September 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
6. Norbury, Katharine (26 June 2016). "Climbing Days by Dan Richards – review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 28 September 2024. Retrieved 27 September 2024.

Sources

• Osborne, Carol A. (23 September 2004). "Richards [née Pilley], Dorothy Eleanor". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/52566. Archived from the original on 28 September 2024. Retrieved 27 September 2024. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Further reading

• Jensen, Susan; Stockham, Karen (1 October 2015). "My Gypsy Self: Dorothy Pilley and Women's Mountaineering" (PDF). The Alpine Journal. 119. London, England: Alpine Club: 189–198. ISBN 978-0-956-93094-1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 September 2024. Retrieved 27 September 2024.
• Stockham, Karen (14 May 2015). "'Home is Just Another Range of Mountains': Constructions of 'Home' in Women's Mountaineering Auto/biographies" (PDF). Plymouth, England: Plymouth Marjon University. pp. 96–104. ISSN 2040-2996. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 September 2024. Retrieved 27 September 2024.

Gallery

• 
  Dorothy Pilley c.1926
• 
  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