Tibetan Foothold. London; John Murray, 1966. First Edition.. Blue cloth boards in pictorial dust jacket. A nice bright copy.

Often cited as a high point of mid-20th-century travel literature, praised for its unflinching detail and moral clarity, this detailed description of Murphy’s arduous journey from India into the Himalayas, ultimately reaching the ancient kingdom of Mustang in Nepal. This region, bordering the Tibetan plateau, served as her “foothold” for observing Tibetan culture.

The narrative is framed by a specific historical challenge: the aftermath of the 1959 Tibetan uprising and the Dalai Lama’s exile. Murphy attempted to access the Tibetan borderlands during a time when the region was largely closed to outsiders.

Dervla Murphy (1931–2022) was an iconic Irish travel writer known for her intrepid, self-supported journeys by bicycle, mule, or on foot. She received the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize in 1979 and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing in 2021