Graham Hoyland

Graham Hoyland is a British author, mountaineer and sailor. He was the 15th Briton to climb Mount Everest and instigated the 1999 Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition, which was responsible for finding George Mallory's body.

He is a best-selling author, mountaineer, sailor and producer and director of adventure films. He has worked on all seven continents for the BBC, Discovery, Travel Channel and NBC, from the shores of Antarctica to the peaks of the Himalayas.

HarperCollins published his book of the Mallory find: "Last Hours on Everest" (2016). This was allocated a Kindle Daily Deal, became an Amazon #1 Bestseller and gained many glowing press reviews. This book has sold 20,000 copies in hardback, paperback, Kindle, and Audiobook formats.

HarperCollins then published his "Walking Through Spring: An English Journey" (2016), "Yeti: An Abominable History" (2018), and Merlin (Amazon #1 Bestseller in Aviation History) books. Following the success of the latter title, he followed up with another one about the jet engine and soon will be publishing another about the piston aero engine.

He has worked on science, ethnographic, religion and natural history films, and also on the award-winning BBC Two business series 'Dragon's Den'.

Writing for the Travel section of the Independent is one of the unexpected pleasures that comes from a lifetime of travel, and now he is lecturing and after-dinner speaking about his books and his "Seven Seas, Seven Summits" circumnavigation of the world by yacht.

"I wrote "Last Hours on Everest" because I thought I had finally figured out what happened to Mallory and Irvine when they disappeared during the 1924 Everest expedition.

I climbed the mountain in 1993 (becoming the 15th Briton to climb Everest). There are lots of good books on the topic, but very few by Everest summiteers who can draw on personal experience of the mountain. I've returned there nine times trying to discover exactly what happened up there. On the way, my 1999 expedition found George Mallory's body.

The combination of a long-kept family secret, high-altitude archaeology and cutting-edge science led me to the truth."