The works of the late Alfred Wainwright, whose guides to the lakes have informed generations of fell walkers, are being taken out of print because of declining sales.

The publisher Michael Joseph, part of the Penguin Group , said it could no longer justify maintaining the Wainwright titles on its list. The author's family is looking for a new publisher to revitalise sales.

The announcement that Wainwright will disappear from the shelves will dismay admirers of his work. During his life he wrote 55 books, of which his 7 pictorial guides to the Lakeland fells are the most well known. Only a handfull are currently in print.

Son of a stonemason, he left school at the age of 13. At the age of 23 he went on holiday to the Lake District. It was love at first sight.

"I was utterly enslaved by all I saw" he said. "here were no huge factories, but mountains; no stagnant canals, but sparkling crystal-clear rivers; no cinder paths, but beckoning tracks that clamber through bracken and heather to the silent fastnesses of the hills. That week changed my life."