He is a man written out of the history books-dismissed as an eccentric, and gossiped about because of rumors of his transvestism.

This is the tale of an adventurer unlike any you have ever encountered: complex, driven, wry, haunted, and fully alive. Wilson believes that Everest can redeem him. He wants to be the first man to stand on top of the world. He emerges from his funk with a crystalline ambition. When he finally returns to England, nearly a decade after he first left, he finds himself falling in love once more-this time with his best friend’s wife-before depression overcomes him again. He begins a years-long trek around the world, burning through marriages and relationships, leaving damaged lives in his wake. Wilson returns from the conflict unable to cope with the sadness that engulfs him. His hometown of Bradford in northern England is ripped apart by the fighting. Wilson is one of the Great War’s heroes, but also one of its victims. Eventually, in disguise, he sneaks into Tibet. Wilson’s eleven-month journey to Everest is wild: full of twists, turns, and daring.

In 1933, he takes off from London in a Gipsy Moth biplane with his course set for the highest mountain on earth. But he has the right plane, the right equipment, and a deep yearning to achieve his goal. In the 1930s, as official government expeditions set their sights on conquering Mount Everest, a little-known World War I veteran named Maurice Wilson conceives his own crazy, beautiful plan: he will fly a plane from England to Everest, crash-land on its lower slopes, then become the first person to reach its summit-all utterly alone.

An extraordinary true story about one man’s attempt to salve the wounds of war and save his own soul through an audacious adventure.

The mountain and the moth