The English version was published in February 1952 as No Picnic on Mount Kenya (William Kimber, London), with the subtitle The Story of Three P.O.W.s' Escape to Adventure. No expedition on the mountain was ever a picnic Vivienne de Watteville had written in her book Speak to the Earth (1935) about her 1929 visit to Mount Kenya. Benuzzi's English title, perhaps suggested by this line of de Watteville's, refers to the expression 'It was no picnic', meaning 'It was hard going', but with an ironic allusion to the climbers' meagre P.O.W. rations. There have been at least eighteen English impressions, some published without the subtitle. The Readers Union edition (1953), and the 'concise' version (ed. S. H. Burton) brought out by Longmans and Green in their 'Heritage of Literature Series' for schools (1960), helped popularise the book. The dust-cover of the English 2nd edition (Kimber, London, 1974) gives a 1970s' photograph of Benuzzi, Balletto and Barsotti and biographical updates; the 3rd English edition (Patrick Stephens Ltd, Wellingborough, 1989, Introduction by Rick Ridgeway), updates the biographical information. In 1999 Lyon Press republished the book with the subtitle A Daring Escape, a Perilous Climb. In 2015 MacLehose Press brought out a new edition, with some twenty of Benuzzi's own watercolours from the expedition (all, for the first time, in colour), two contemporary photos of the Nanyuki POW camp, and a full translation of 'L'ignoto' (see above) from the Italian original.