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Tim Madge
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The Last Hero: A Biography of the Explorer Bill Tilman Kindle Edition

by Tim Madge (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings
Arguably the greatest explorer and adventurer the twentieth century produced, Bill Tilman was in his eightieth year when he disappeared in Antarctic waters in 1977.

The yacht on which he had set sail was ill-suited for the voyage but he had committed himself to go. His iron-willed integrity forbad any last minute doubts. It was his will power, as well as his extraordinary tenacity, that most of those who knew him remember best. To a later generation those qualities were often perceived as stubborn wayward refusal to accept the inevitable.

To many who knew him well, as much as to the thousands of climbers and sailors, who relished each of his 15 memorable books, Tilman remained an enigma – a shy self-effacing man with a wicked dry sense of humour who hardly credited his own achievements and who never married.

Bill Tilman was one of the 20th century’s greatest travel writers, a master of a good story, with a black sense of humour. Using a mass of previously unpublished material from thousands of letters and papers, The Last Hero shows the human face of a man who deserves a belated wide-spread recognition from a world which, more than ever, needs its adventurers and heroes.

Praise for Tim Madge...


‘This is a searching affectionate yet honest biography…’ - Liverpool Daily Post

'Tim Madge traces the extraordinary life of this driven and very private man…’ - Lancashire Evening Telegraph

‘I see Tilman as a child of the 19th century who never grew into an adult of the 20th…’ - High Magazine

Tim Madge is a social historian, lecturer and journalist. He is the author of a number of books, including Maiden (with Tracy Edwards) and White Mischief, subsequently turned into a BBC Radio Four documentary series which he wrote and presented. Dr Madge is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
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  1. Print length
    376 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Accessibility
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  4. Publication date
    August 2, 2018
  5. File size
    1.8 MB
  6. Page Flip
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07G5NVJR8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Lume Books
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 2, 2018
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1.8 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 376 pages
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 24 ratings

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Tim Madge

Tim Madge

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
24 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Patricia Muller
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Great Book Glad I bought it.
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  • The Truth
    1.0 out of 5 stars Lost time and money on a "do nothing" book.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 2, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Was Tilman as small, no pun intended, as this author portrays him to be? I hope not. Please do yourself a favor and not invest your valuable life time in this work or should I say folly.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Peter Bowes
    4.0 out of 5 stars A lonely end
    Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2001
    Bill Tilman was happiest when his crew was Australian. Bill Tilman was comfortable in his old boats as they set off on voyages of months and years, and he could not understand why others aboard felt otherwise. This is an uncomfortable book in that it portrays the selfishness of an explorer, the selflessness of the explorer. Bill Tilman was a very hard man on himself, and anyone else who thought they had the stamina to go with him. A must read for anyone thinking of going on an Outward Bound course.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Andrew Craig-Bennett
    1.0 out of 5 stars A poor effort by a writer with little knowledge of his subject
    Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2010
    I do not know why Dr Madge wrote this book, other than an understandable desire to take money from the ever gullible public and put it in his pocket.

    He is out of sympathy with his subject, knows little of sailing, and repeatedly misunderstands what he has read in Tilman's own writings.

    He has a lamentable tendency to cut the facts to suit the cloth of his hypothesis - that of the selfish, miserable, impossibly demanding old misanthrope.

    Having myself sailed with Tilman, I can state categorically that Madge regularly gets his story backwards, in part no doubt because unlike Tilman he has no sense of humour that anyone can detect, and his picture of a man who, armed with a pipe and a pint, was a formiddable raconteur, is just plain wrong!

    Buy JRL Anderson's biography, High Mountains and Cold Seas, and better still read Tilman's own books, which you can buy right here...
    11 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • John E
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book about Bill Tilman
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Second hand book in good condition. Would use seller again.
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  • bobby
    5.0 out of 5 stars Buy This Book
    Reviewed in Canada on January 17, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    This product provided deep insights into how to live your best life.
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  • Ncar
    3.0 out of 5 stars COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Not an 'easy' read, not totally accurate in my opinion. As one of a small crew who sailed Baroque back from Iceland after patching her up, I thought we might be worthy of a brief mention since we were the last ones to sail with him and live to tell the tale! At one point we all thought Baroque was likely to go down in a Force 9 off The Smalls in the Irish sea, and we had some quite 'deep' conversations with the skipper over a scotch or two, about his views and life. Might have given more content to the book had we been asked! We spent about a month with him shortly before he got on En Avant for his fateful last voyage with Simon Richardson.
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  • R. W. Polkinghorne
    1.0 out of 5 stars A poor biography
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    This could have been a so much better piece of work about a fascinating subject. But it isn't. If , as the author states, he had access, thought Bill's neice Pam of all Tilmans papers and letters, a lot of answers to puzling periods of this subject could have been answered. An example - Baroque, Tilmans third Pilot Cutter was by his own ommision a pig in a poke. The urban myth is that Tillman did't care about such things, but this one he did have professionally surveyed before buying it. It had such a bad survey that the vendor lowered the price. Presumably that survey would have been with Tilmans papers, and also invoices to get all the things repaired. This would have given us some true idea of just how bad a state Baroque was in. The authour blindly repeats the myth that Bill was parsimonious about the care and conditio of his ships. Careful rooting through his pages must surely had turned up documents and letters of this time.
    Far too much of this book is just a regugitation of large chunks of Tilmans own books. Thats no way to write a biography, and smacks of making money out of a deceased author. There is absolutely nothing new or original in this book, and any comments on Tilmans character have been interpreted from the books, not further research. A truly dissapointing biography
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