Lost City of the Incas by Hiram Gingham is a 266-page hardcover first published in 1951 by Phoenix House, Ltd. This copy is the stated third printing of 2007 by The Folio Society. The book is in very good condition, with no dust jacket but comes in a sleeve.
Hiram Bingham's description of his first sight of the monuments of Machu Picchu emerging from the Amazon jungle is for me the most exciting and most lyrical in all the annals of exploration. It is the embodiment of everyone's secret dream. On the afternoon of 24 July 1911, after a hot, steep and exhausting climb from the Urubamba River, Bingham was on the point of abandoning his quixotic bid to find some Inca ruins. He ate some cooked sweet potatoes with the Peruvian farmers who were guiding him. Then, rounding a promontory, 'we were confronted with an unexpected sight, a great flight of beautifully constructed stone-faced terraces, perhaps a hundred of them, each hundred of feet long and ten feet high...' --John Hemming
