Letters from climber who vanished on Mount Everest in 1924 are published by Cambridge University

Letters from the British climber George Mallory, who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924, to his wife Ruth have been published online.

The mountaineer and explorer was 37 years old when he and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine vanished close to the summit.

Mallory's body was found 75 years later in 1999.

There is still debate about whether the pair made it to the top of the mountain.

Mallory's former Cambridge college, Magdalene, has now published a collection of letters online in the centenary year of his disappearance.

He was a member of Britain's Alpine Club and it was on his third expedition to Everest that he vanished.

Mallory had reportedly said, when asked why he wanted to climb Everest, "because it's there".

The majority of the correspondence is between him and his wife Ruth from the time of their engagement in 1914 until his death on Everest in 1924.

It includes the last letter Mallory wrote to her before his final Everest summit attempt.

In the letter, he said the odds were "50 to 1 against us".

"Darling I wish you the best I can - that your anxiety will be at an end before you get this - with the best news. Which will also be the quickest," he wrote.

"It is 50 to 1 against us but we'll have a whack yet & do ourselves proud."

He signed off the letter: "Great love to you. Ever your loving, George."

The only surviving letter from the Everest period in the archive from Ruth Mallory to her husband is also published online.

In the letter, she writes that she is "keeping quite cheerful and happy but I do miss you a lot".

The letters cover topics including Mallory's first reconnaissance mission to Everest in 1921 and his second expedition there in 1922.

His service in the First World War, including his eyewitness accounts of being in the Artillery during the Battle of the Somme, is also described in the letters.

Three letters that were retrieved from Mallory's body in 1999, which survived for 75 years in his jacket pocket, are also published online.

Magdalene College archivist Katy Green said: "It has been a real pleasure to work with these letters.

"Whether it's George's wife Ruth writing about how she was posting him plum cakes and a grapefruit to the trenches (he said the grapefruit wasn't ripe enough), or whether it's his poignant last letter where he says the chances of scaling Everest are '50 to 1 against us', they offer a fascinating insight into the life of this famous Magdalene alumnus."

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