page_title: Kangchenjunga
section_title: In literature
hierarchical_section_title: Kangchenjunga / In literature
caption_attribution_description: The rarely visited east face of Kangchenjunga, as seen from Thalem just below the Zemu glacier in Sikkim.
context_page_description: Kangchenjunga, also spelled Kanchenjunga, is the third highest mountain in the world. It rises with an elevation of 8,586 m in a section of the Himalayas called Kangchenjunga Himal delimited in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak Chu and Jongsang La, and in the east by the Teesta River. It lies between Nepal and Sikkim, India, with three of the five peaks directly on the border, and the remaining two in Nepal's Taplejung District.
  Until 1852, Kangchenjunga was assumed to be the highest mountain in the world, but calculations based on various readings and measurements made by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India in 1849 came to the conclusion that Mount Everest, known as Peak XV at the time, was the highest. Allowing for further verification of all calculations, it was officially announced in 1856 that Kangchenjunga is the third highest mountain in the world.
  Kangchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who were part of a British expedition. They stopped short of the summit in accordance with the promise given to the Chogyal that the top of the mountain would remain intact.
context_section_description: In the Swallows and Amazons series of books by Arthur Ransome, a high mountain (unnamed in the books, but clearly based on the Old Man of Coniston in the English Lake District) is given the name "Kanchenjunga" by the children when they climb it in 1931.
  In The Epic of Mount Everest, first published in 1926, Sir Francis Younghusband: " For natural beauty Darjiling (Darjeeling) is surely unsurpassed in the world. From all countries travellers come there to see the famous view of Kangchenjunga, 28,150 feet (8,580 m) in height, and only 40 miles (64 km) distant. Darjiling (Darjeeling) itself is 7,000 feet (2,100 m) above sea-level and is set in a forest of oaks, magnolia, rhododendrons, laurels and sycamores. And through these forests, the observer looks down the steep mountain-sides to the Rangeet River only 1,000 feet (300 m) above sea-level, and then up and up through tier after tier of forest-clad ranges, each bathed in a haze of deeper and deeper purple, till the line of snow is reached; and then still up to the summit of Kangchenjunga, now so pure and ethereal we can scarcely believe it is part of the solid earth on which we stand; and so high it seems part of the very sky itself."
  In 1999, official James Bond author Raymond Benson published High Time to Kill. In this story, a microdot containing a secret formula for aviation technology is stolen by a society called the Union. During their escape, their plane crashes on the slopes of Kangchenjunga. James Bond becomes part of a climbing expedition in order to retrieve the formula.
  The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which won the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is set partly in Kalimpong, a hill station situated near Kangchenjunga.
  In Legend of the Galactic Heroes by Yoshiki Tanaka, which won the Seiun Award for "Best Novel of the Year" in 1988 and was adapted into an anime series by Kitty Films, the capital and holiest temple of the Terraist Cult is on Earth beneath the rubble of Kangchenjunga.
  Michelle Paver's 2016 ghost story Thin Air concerns a fictional expedition to climb Kangchenjunga in 1935, and an earlier (also fictional) expedition in 1906.
  The book Round Kangchenjunga – A Narrative of Mountain Travel and Exploration by Douglas Freshfield gives a complete account of his travel around Kangchenjunga.
caption: East face of Kangchenjunga, from near the Zemu Glacier, Sikkim
exif: {}