Patrick Leigh Fermor
An Adventure
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) was a war hero whose exploits in Crete are legendary, and above all he is widely acclaimed as the greatest travel writer of our times, notably for his books about his walk across pre-war Europe, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water; he was a self-educated polymath, a lover of Greece and the best company in the world.
Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Paddy and his cloest friends as well as having complete access to his archives. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts - no one wore their learning so playfully, nor inspired such passionate friendship.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her arresting biography of Patrick Leigh Fermor, an ever-curious travel writer known for experiencing locales at ground- level, Cooper (Writing at the Kitchen Table), studies a man determined to see the world firsthand, with interviews from family and friends, rare letters, and diaries. Fermor, who grew up at the turn of the 20th century in England, was known during his school years as a noisy troublemaker. Upon graduation in 1933, Fermor boarded a ship for mainland Europe, determined to spend a year walking through the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to Rumania. Cooper provides the details of Paddy's wanderlust and his travels to Constantinople the following year, talking to the locals, soaking up the regional folklore, but noting the cruel expansion of the Nazi doctrine through Europe. Paddy led a daring WWII mission to snare a notorious German general on Crete, where he later lived, writing exceptional travel books over four decades. Nostalgic and expertly written, Cooper fleshes out Fermor, a man who boldly traveled a world on the edge of catastrophe, which he explained in his writing to a faithful readership.
