In his review of Everest 1933 (Ruttledge, 1941, first published in 1934), G. L. Corbett commended the book with the words, There are passages as fine as anything in Alpine literature. When analysing the expedition's overall lack of success, he stated that although there has never been an attempt on a mountain more carefully prepared, more methodically directed, three things were responsible for the failure to reach Mount Everest's summit. First, the disagreements over the siting of Camp V and the resulting descent to Camp IV led to the loss of an unusually good climbing window between 20 and 22 May. As Raymond Greene later said, It may be that we lost not two days but twenty years. The weather thereafter deteriorated sharply. Corbett places the blame squarely at the feet of Ruttledge, who should have been at Camp IV to direct operations, rather than lower down the mountain. Second, the instructions to Wager and Wyn-Harris to try to tackle the Second Step lost them valuable time, and even though they eventually decided to take Norton's lower traverse they were by no means convinced that the Step was unclimbable. Regarding the flexibility of their approach, Corbett quoted Smythe, who stated that Everest will only be climbed by a man who is single-minded in the matter of route, and any doubt or hesitancy in this respect must always lead to defeat. Third, the fact that Smythe was forced to make his summit bid alone was directly attributable to Shipton falling ill on the attempt. Solo climbing, Corbett argued, is not a practice to be encouraged anywhere: on the last thousand feet of Everest, in dangerous condition, it is bad mountaineering.