Frank S. Smythe was a sickly child who as an adult had his military career ended by a heart condition. Defying medical advice, he turned to climbing mountains and writing about his exploits. Smythe became one of the foremost advocates of travel to mountainous regions around the world. His popular books, articles, and photographs of his climbs helped broaden the readership of mountaineering literature from the cognoscenti to nonmountaineers. Instead of concentrating on exceptional feats by accomplished climbers, Smythe described the simple joy and delight of being among the hills of the British Isles, the mountains of the European Alps, the Himalayas, and the Canadian Rockies. His accounts were accompanied by excellent photographs; he was considered by many of his contemporaries to be a pioneering and top-class mountain photographer.

Francis Sydney Smythe was born on 6 July 1900 at Ivythorne, Maidstone, to Algernon Sydney Smythe, a timber merchant and property...