The Caves Beyond: The Story of the Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave Exploration

In February, 1954, under the direction of Joe Lawrence, Jr., the National Speleological Society sent the largest, most highly organized, and best-equipped expedition in the history of American cave exploration into Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave, Kentucky. The Caves Beyond is the official account of that expedition and a classic American caving story. There is no other caving book like it. First published in 1955 in an edition of 10,000 copies, the book was out of print soon afterwards. Good copies of the rare first edition are a sought after prize to book collectors. This quality reprint reproduces every word and picture of the original edition. Brucker's new introduction to the long-awaited reprint edition reveals a number of "untold stories" about the expedition, including stories of the politics behind the C-3 expedition and of how the book came to be written in an attic in Brooklyn in two weeks' time. There is also a detailed index, which the first edition lacked.