Alpine Journal

The Alpine Journal (AJ) is an annual publication by the Alpine Club of London. It is the oldest mountaineering journal in the world.^[1]

Alpine Journal

Categories	Climbing, Mountaineering
Frequency	Annually
Publisher	The Alpine Club
First issue	2 March 1863
Country	United Kingdom
Website	www.alpinejournal.org.uk
ISSN	0065-6569

History

The journal was first published on 2 March 1863 by the publishing house of Longman in London, with Hereford Brooke George as its first editor. It was a replacement for Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, which had been issued in two series: in 1858 (with John Ball as editor), and 1862 (in two volumes, with Edward Shirley Kennedy as editor).^[2]

The journal covers all aspects of mountains and mountaineering, including expeditions, adventure, art, literature, geography, history, geology, medicine, ethics and the mountain environment, and the history of mountain exploration, from early ascents in the Alps, exploration of the Himalaya and the succession of attempts on Mount Everest, to present-day exploits.

Online access

Journal volumes since 1926 (bar the current issue) are freely available online.^[3] Digital scans of earlier volumes of the Alpine Journal from 1863 to 1929 have been made by academic libraries and are available online.^[4][5]

Notable editors

The following people have edited the journal:

• Leslie Stephen (1868–1872)^[1]
• Douglas Freshfield^[1] (1872–1880)
• Arthur John Butler (1890–1893)^[6]
• George Yeld (1896–1926)^[1]
• John Percy Farrar (1920–1926, co-editor)^[1]
• Edward Lisle Strutt (1927–1937)^[1]
• T. Graham Brown (1949–1953)^[1]
• Johanna Merz (1992–1998)^[1]
• Ed Douglas (1999–2023)^[7]