7The White Spider dramatically recreates not only the harrowing, successful ascent made by Harrer and his comrades in 1938, but also the previous, tragic attempts at a wall of rock that was recently enshrined in mountaineer Jon Krakauer's first work, Eiger Dreams. For a generation of American climbers, The White Spider has been a formative book--yet it has long been out-of-print in America. This edition awaits discovery by Harrer's new legion of readers.