Wellington  - A New Zealand mountaineer has slammed a claim by author Jeffrey Archer in a new book that a British climber conquered Mount Everest years before Sir Edmund Hillary, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Archer's book, Paths of Glory, is a fictionalized account of the life of George Mallory, who died on Everest in 1924, 29 years before Hillary climbed the world's tallest peak with Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Melbourne, February 20 : British author Jeffrey Archer claims that Oscar-winning Australian film actor Peter Finch's father could have been the first man to conquer Mount Everest in 1924, had the UK's Royal Geographical Society not intervened.

Archer, whose claims are part of his research for a new novel titled `Paths Of Glory', says that Aussie mountaineer George Finch was set to accompany his regular climbing partner George Mallory, a Briton, on a bid to conquer Everest before the society intervened.

The writer tells in a Daily Telegraph report that they wanted Mallory to take with him another British climber named Sandy Irvine, reports News. com. au.