Peter Firstbrook

1951

United Kingdom

Firstbrook, a television documentary producer who until 2002 worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation, has adapted some of his films into book form. The first of these, The Voyage of the Matthew: John Cabot and the Discovery of North America, concerns the explorer who, under the English flag, was the first to land in North America after Christopher Columbus's landings in the Caribbean. Cabot, who was born Giovanni Caboto in the same birth city as Columbus - Genoa, Italy - landed in Newfoundland in 1497, and Firstbrook filmed a documentary to mark the 500th anniversary of that successful voyage. But the book offers more than a simple account of this journey, according to reviewers. Because of the lack of available records from this period, including no physical evidence or drawings of the caravel vessel Cabot commanded, Firstbrook relies on a great deal of educated guesswork and even attempts to reconstruct how the Matthew might have looked. In 1999 Firstbrook had the rare opportunity to accompany Conrad Anker on a mission to find out what happened to the British explorers George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who disappeared in 1924 while attempting to be the first people to climb Mt. Everest. Anker did indeed locate Mallory's frozen and mummified body, and this discovery proved to be a sensation in the news media, as well as the subject of another First-brook BBC documentary. Firstbrook then published the story in his Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine, in which he concludes that Mallory and Irvine never reached Everest's peak and that Mallory apparently died in a fall.

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Works

book

The Voyage of the Matthew: John Cabot and the Discovery of North America

1997

Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory & Irvine

(Recounts the adventures of two British mountainers who di...)

1999

The Obamas: The Untold Story of an African Family

(Barack Obama’s rise to the American presidency had captiv...)

2011

A Man Most Driven: Captain John Smith, Pocahontas and the Founding of America

(Named One of the Best Books of 2014 by The Providence Jou...)

2014

Peter Firstbrook Edit Profile

author film producer

Background

Firstbrook was born in 1951, in the United Kingdom.

Education

Nothing is known about Firstbrook's education.

Career

Firstbrook, a television documentary producer who until 2002 worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation, has adapted some of his films into book form. The first of these, The Voyage of the Matthew: John Cabot and the Discovery of North America, concerns the explorer who, under the English flag, was the first to land in North America after Christopher Columbus's landings in the Caribbean. Cabot, who was born Giovanni Caboto in the same birth city as Columbus - Genoa, Italy - landed in Newfoundland in 1497, and Firstbrook filmed a documentary to mark the 500th anniversary of that successful voyage. But the book offers more than a simple account of this journey, according to reviewers. Because of the lack of available records from this period, including no physical evidence or drawings of the caravel vessel Cabot commanded, Firstbrook relies on a great deal of educated guesswork and even attempts to reconstruct how the Matthew might have looked.

In 1999 Firstbrook had the rare opportunity to accompany Conrad Anker on a mission to find out what happened to the British explorers George Mallory and Sandy Irvine, who disappeared in 1924 while attempting to be the first people to climb Mt. Everest. Anker did indeed locate Mallory's frozen and mummified body, and this discovery proved to be a sensation in the news media, as well as the subject of another First-brook BBC documentary. Firstbrook then published the story in his Lost on Everest: The Search for Mallory and Irvine, in which he concludes that Mallory and Irvine never reached Everest's peak and that Mallory apparently died in a fall.

Achievements

Firstbrook is best known in film production as a director, producer, writer, and executive producer. For most of his television career, he has specialized in making documentaries on history and international social issues, but his credits also include TV commercials, live outside broadcasts, 'event programming', drama, concerts, and radio.