Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was an intrepid traveler, a heroic soldier, and a writer with a unique prose style. After his stormy schooldays, followed by the walk across Europe to Constantinople that begins in A Time of Gifts (1977) and continues through Between the Woods and the Water (1986), he lived and traveled in the Balkans and the Greek Archipelago. His books Mani (1958) and Roumeli (1966) attest to his deep interest in languages and remote places. In the Second World War he joined the Irish Guards, became a liaison officer in Albania, and fought in Greece and Crete. He was awarded the DSO and OBE. He lived partly in Greece—in the house he designed with his wife, Joan, in an olive grove in the Mani—and partly in Worcestershire. He was knighted in 2004 for his services to literature and to British–Greek relations.
Books
Patrick Leigh Fermor Collection
With this unbeatable collection, readers can accompany the inimitable Leigh Fermor on his magnificent journeys across Europe, the Caribbean Islands, and beyond. Traveling with the man who was once described as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene” is an experience not to be missed.
The Traveller’s Tree
Patrick Leigh Fermor’s first book, “still the best piece of travel writing on the Caribbean,” (The Guardian) takes him to Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Haiti, among other islands. There he breaks bread with people rich and poor, befriends artists, listens to steel-drum bands, and comes across the then little-known religion: Rastafarianism.
In Tearing Haste
“Spanning half a century, bursting with wit and conviviality, In Tearing Haste collects the letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor and Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire. The result is surely one of the great 20th-century correspondences.” —The Observer (UK)
The Way of the World
In 1953 two young men in Geneva hopped in their rusty old Fiat determined to drive their way to the Khyber Pass. Many years later, Nicolas Bouvier reconstructed their travels through Turkey, Kurdistan, Afghanistan in this luminous travel memoir filled with the romance of unbound youth and adventure of self-discovery.
A Time to Keep Silence
Patrick Leigh Fermor, considered by many to be the greatest living travel writer, chronicles his sojourns at some of Europe’s oldest and most celebrated monasteries in this meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude in modern life.
Mani
Patrick Leigh Fermor carries the reader with him on his journeys amongst the peoples of the southernmost parts of Greece, exploring their history and time-honored lore.
Roumeli
Travel writing’s very own “cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene” explores northern Greece.
Between the Woods and the Water
Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts.
A Time of Gifts
At once a memoir of coming-of-age, an account of a journey, and a dazzling exposition of the English language, A Time of Gifts is also a portrait of a continent already showing ominous signs of the holocaust to come.