Patrick Leigh Fermor was born in 1915 of English and Irish descent. 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 now lives 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. »

Jan Morris was born in 1926, is Anglo-Welsh, and lives in Wales. She has written some forty books, including the Pax Britannica trilogy about the British Empire, studies of Wales, Spain, Venice, Oxford, Manhattan, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Trieste, six volumes of collected travel essays, two memoirs, two capricious biographies, and a couple of novels—but she defines her entire oeuvre as "disguised autobiography." She is an honorary D.Litt. of the University of Wales and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. »

A Time of Gifts

On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube

By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Jan Morris

At the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains. Acclaimed for its sweep and intelligence, Leigh Fermor's book explores a remarkable moment in time. Hitler has just come to power but war is still ahead, as he walks through a Europe soon to be forever changed—through the Lowlands to Mitteleuropa, to Teutonic and Slav heartlands, through the baroque remains of the Holy Roman Empire; up the Rhine, and down to the Danube.

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.

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Reviews

The greatest of living travel writers...An amazingly complex and subtle evocation of a place that is no more.
— Jan Morris

Also see:

Between the Woods and the Water
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Jan Morris

Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts.
Mani
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Michael Gorra

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
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Patricia Storace

Travel writing's very own "cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Graham Greene" explores northern Greece.
A Time to Keep Silence
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Karen Armstrong

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.

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Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $16.95
Price: $13.56 (20% off)


Oct 3, 2005
344 pages
ISBN: 1590171659
9781590171653
Literature in English
NYRB Classics

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