Patrick Leigh Fermor Popular Books
Patrick Leigh Fermor Biography & Facts
Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (11 February 1915 – 10 June 2011) was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, on the basis of books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene". Early life and education Leigh Fermor was born in London, the son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, a distinguished geologist, and Muriel Aeyleen (Eileen), daughter of Charles Taafe Ambler. Shortly after his birth, his mother and sister left to join his father in India, leaving the infant Patrick in England with a family in Northamptonshire: first in the village of Weedon, and later in nearby Dodford. He did not meet his parents or his sister again until he was four years old. As a child Leigh Fermor had problems with academic structure and limitations, and was sent to a school for "difficult" children. He was later expelled from The King's School, Canterbury after he was caught holding hands with a greengrocer's daughter. At school he also became friendly with another contemporary Alan Watts. His last report from The King's School noted that the young Leigh Fermor was "a dangerous mixture of sophistication and recklessness". He continued learning by reading texts on Greek, Latin, Shakespeare and history, with the intention of entering the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Gradually he changed his mind, deciding to become an author instead, and in the summer of 1933 relocated to Shepherd Market in London, living with a few friends. Soon, faced with the challenges of an author's life in London and rapidly draining finances, he decided to leave for Europe. Early travels At the age of 18 Leigh Fermor decided to walk the length of Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople (Istanbul). He set off on 8 December 1933 with a few clothes, several letters of introduction, the Oxford Book of English Verse and a Loeb volume of Horace's Odes. He slept in barns and shepherds' huts, but was also invited by gentry and aristocracy into the country houses of Central Europe. He experienced hospitality in many monasteries along the way. Two of his later travel books, A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986), cover this journey, but at the time of his death, a book on the final part of his journey remained unfinished. This was edited and assembled from Leigh Fermor's diary of the time and an early draft he wrote in the 1960s. It was published as The Broken Road by John Murray in September 2013. Leigh Fermor arrived in Istanbul on 1 January 1935, then continued to travel around Greece, spending a few weeks in Mount Athos. In March he was involved in the campaign of royalist forces in Macedonia against an attempted Republican revolt. In Athens, he met Balasha Cantacuzène (Bălaşa Cantacuzino), a Romanian Phanariote noblewoman, with whom he fell in love. They shared an old watermill outside the city looking out towards Poros, where she painted and he wrote. They moved on to Băleni, Galați, the Cantacuzène house in Moldavia, Romania, where he remained until the autumn of 1939. On learning that Britain had declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 Leigh Fermor immediately left Romania for home and enlisted in the army. He did not meet Cantacuzène again until 1965. Second World War As an officer cadet Leigh Fermor trained alongside Derek Bond and Iain Moncreiffe. He later joined the Irish Guards. His knowledge of modern Greek gained him a commission in the General List in August 1940 and he became a liaison officer in Albania. He fought in Crete and mainland Greece. During the German occupation, he returned to Crete three times, once by parachute, and was among a small number of Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers posted to organise the island's resistance to the occupation. Disguised as a shepherd and nicknamed Michalis or Filedem, he lived for over two years in the mountains. With Captain Bill Stanley Moss as his second in command, Leigh Fermor led the party that in 1944 captured and evacuated the German commander, Major General Heinrich Kreipe. There is a memorial commemorating Kreipe's abduction near Archanes in Crete. Moss featured the events of the Cretan capture in his book Ill Met by Moonlight. (The 2014 edition contains an afterword on the context, written by Leigh Fermor in 2001.) It was adapted in a film by the same name, directed/produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and released in 1957 with Leigh Fermor played by Dirk Bogarde. Leigh Fermor's own account Abducting A General – The Kreipe Operation and SOE in Crete appeared in October 2014. During periods of leave, Leigh Fermor spent time at Tara, a villa in Cairo rented by Moss, where the "rowdy household" of SOE officers was presided over by Countess Zofia (Sophie) Tarnowska. Wartime honours Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) Honorary Citizen of Heraklion, of Kardamyli and of Gytheio Post-war In 1950 Leigh Fermor published his first book, The Traveller's Tree, about his post-war travels in the Caribbean, which won the Heinemann Foundation Prize for Literature and established his career. The reviewer in The Times Literary Supplement wrote: "Mr Leigh Fermor never loses sight of the fact, not always grasped by superficial visitors, that most of the problems of the West Indies are the direct legacy of the slave trade." It was quoted extensively in Live and Let Die, by Ian Fleming. He went on to write several other books of his journeys, including Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese and Roumeli, of his travels on mule and foot around remote parts of Greece. Leigh Fermor translated the manuscript The Cretan Runner written by George Psychoundakis, a dispatch runner on Crete during the war, and helped Psychoundakis get his work published. Leigh Fermor also wrote a novel, The Violins of Saint-Jacques, which was adapted as an opera by Malcolm Williamson. His friend Lawrence Durrell recounts in his book Bitter Lemons (1957) how in 1955, during the Cyprus Emergency, Leigh Fermor visited Durrell's villa in Bellapais, Cyprus: After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Athens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the ouzo bottle.... I find the street completely filled with people listening in utter silence and darkness. Everyone seems struck dumb. 'What is it?' I say, catching sight of Frangos. 'Never have I heard of Englishmen singing Greek songs like this!' Their reverent amazement is touching; it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes. Later years After living with her for many years, Leigh Fermor was married in 1968 to the Honourable Joan Elizabeth Rayner (née Eyres Monsell), daughter of Bolton Eyres-Monsell, 1st Viscount Monsell. She accompanied him on many .... Discover the Patrick Leigh Fermor popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Patrick Leigh Fermor books.
Best Seller Patrick Leigh Fermor Books of 2024
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What the past did for us
Adam Hart-DavisAdam HartDavis, one of the nations favourite TV presenters, returns to our screens with a tour through the Top Ten developments of each of the great civilisations of the past. From...
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Dear Mr Murray
David McClayThe publishing house of John Murray was founded in Fleet Street in 1768 and remained a family business over seven generations. Intended both to entertain and inspire, Dear Mr Murra...
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Gypsy Bride
Sam Skye Lee'I felt like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and all the other fairytale princesses, and Pat was my Prince Charming.'Sam Skye Lee had often thought about getting married, b...
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Where the Wild Winds Are
Nick HuntSelected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator"Travel writing in excelsis." Jan Morris, author of Venice"A thrilling and gorgeous tale...
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Mysterious Scotland
Michael BalfourMysterious Scotland presents an extraordinary array of the weird and wonderful heritage of the country. Michael Balfour examines strange stories from the moors, forests, rivers, ho...
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Against the Flow
Tom Fort'You have to be on your guard when you go back to special places. You may be able to locate them easily enough on the map, but maps tell only one story. Times change and places and...
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The Natural History of Selborne
Gilbert White & Richard MabeyMore than any other writer Gilbert White (172093) has shaped the relationship between man and nature. A hundred years before Darwin, White realised the crucial role of worms in the...
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Patrick Leigh Fermor
Artemis CooperArtemis Cooper, en la exhaustiva y a la vez cálida biografía sobre su figura, ha sabido captar perfectamente el espíritu apasionado y el magnético carácter del autor de obras magis...
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To the Baltic with Bob
Griff Rhys JonesIn the summer of 2002, two profoundly amateur sailors, Griff and Bob, set off in an elderly yacht for Russia, because, on the map, it looked easier than sailing to Cornwall. They t...
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The Gifts of Reading
Robert MacfarlaneFrom the bestselling author of UNDERLAND, THE OLD WAYS and THE LOST WORDS an essay on the joy of reading, for anyone who has ever loved a bookEvery book is a kind of gift to its r...
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Home at Grasmere
Dorothy Wordsworth & William WordsworthA continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal and a selection of her brother's poems. Dorothy Wordsworth kept her Journal 'because I shall give William pl...
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Blue River, Black Sea
Andrew EamesThe Danube is Europe's Amazon. It flows through more countries than any other river on Earth from the Black Forest in Germany to Europe's farthest fringes, where it joins the Blac...
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Fanny Burney
Kate ChisholmFanny Burney (17521840) is best known as the author of EVELINA, one of the most engaging novels of the eighteenth century. But for much of her long life, she was also an incomparab...
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Walking the Woods and the Water
Nick HuntIn 1933, the eighteen year old Patrick Leigh Fermor set out in a pair of hobnailed boots to chance and charm his way across Europe, like a tramp, a pilgrim or a wandering scholar ....
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Cool for Qat
Peter MortimerWhen author Peter Mortimer was commissioned to write a play about a littleknown riot between Yemeni and British seamen at Mill Dam, South Shields, in 1930, he decided to take the l...
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Poems and Letters
MichelangeloMichelangelo Buonarroti (14751564) is universally celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, yet iconic Renaissance creator was also a prolific and gifted poet. The ver...
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Mirror To Damascus
Colin ThubronA 50th anniversary edition of Colin Thubron's celebrated first book, a portrait of Syria's capital city, with a new introduction by the author.Described by the author as simply 'a ...
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Che Guevara and the Mountain of Silver
Anne MustoeIn her brandnew travelogue, intrepid exheadmistress and bestselling author Anne Mustoe dusts off the bicycle clips once more and embarks on a remarkable journey through South Ameri...
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Healing Quest
Marie HerbertWhen her two daughters were approaching the finish of their education Marie Herbert felt the need to mark the end of the childrearing phase of her life by a rite of passage, a way ...
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A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
James Boswell, Samuel Johnson & Peter LeviBook by Samuel Johnson, published in 1775. The Journey was the result of a threemonth trip to Scotland that Johnson took with James Boswell in 1773. It contains Johnson's descripti...
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The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Peter Abelard & Betty RadiceThe story of Abelard and Heloise remains one of the world's most celebrated and tragic love affairs. Through their letters, we follow the path of their romance from its reckless a...
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Selected Poetry
Isabel Quigly & Percy ShelleySHELLEY'S WORK HAS BEEN CRITICIZED FOR ITS DIDACTICISM AND UNDISCIPLINED EMOTIONALISM. BUT ESSENTIALLY HE WAS A POET OF IDEAS AND IN HIS SEARCH FOR TRUTH AND ORIGINAL HUMAN PERFECT...
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The Amur River
Colin Thubron"A gripping read with fascinating political insight." (Sunday Times, London)"Elegant, elegiac and poignant...Thubron is an intrepid traveler, a shrewd observer and a lyrical guide....
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They Were Divided
Miklós Bánffy, Kathy Banffy-Jelen & Patrick Thursfield"Perfect late night reading" JAN MORRIS "Banffy is a born storyteller" PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR "Totally absorbing" MARTHA KEARNEY "So evocative" SIMON JENKINSThe final volume of Mikl...
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Una aventura griega
María José SolanoUnviajeapasionante alcorazón de la Greciacontemporáneatraslos pasos delintrépidoescritor sir Patrick Leigh Fermor, amigo de Lawrence y Gerald Durrell.Solo aquellos que hayan vivido...
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It Never Rains
Roger McGoughIt Never Rains by Roger McGough an expanded edition of comic verse and free line drawings, from the nation's favourite poetWhile up at MagdalenSpent the time dagdalen.Moved on to ...
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The Fable of the Bees
Bernard Mandeville & Phillip HarthA physician with a particular interest in psychological disorders and satirist, Mandeville published versions of his notorious Fable of the Bees from 1714 to 1732. Each was a defen...
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A Delicious Slice Of Johnners
Brian JohnstonFollowing Brian Johnston's death in 1994, Prime Minister John Major appeared to speak for the nation when he remarked that 'Summers will never be the same.' To an Englishman's ears...
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In Tearing Haste
Patrick Leigh Fermor, Deborah Devonshire & Charlotte MosleyNow in paperback, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Deborah Devonshire's witty, informative, and altogether delightful correspondence. In the spring of 1956, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire...
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Pictures from Italy
Charles Dickens'When Dickens has described something you see it for the rest of your life' George OrwellIn 1844, Charles Dickens took a break from novel writing to travel through Italy for almost...
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Stephen Jones
Simon Roberts & Stephen JonesSince making his national debut in 1998, Stephen Jones has emerged from the shadows of the true greats of Welsh rugby, such as Barry John, Phil Bennett, Jonathan Davies and Neil Je...
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Sculthorpe
Paul SculthorpePAUL SCULTHORPE is the man who was born to be a superstar. Touted as a future Great Britain skipper before he even played his first game as a professional, he has more than lived u...
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Castaway
Lucy IrvineTHE SHOCKING STORY OF A DESERT ISLAND DREAM THAT WENT SOUR'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.' The opportunity to escape from it all was irresistible. Lucy Irvine ...
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans
Hunter Davies'I am fascinated by people turning their daft dreams into a reality. How did they do it and why?'Driven by his own passion for collecting Hunter Davies has packed his notepad and s...
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My Unique Lifetime Association with Patrick Leigh Fermor
Helias Doundoulakis & Gabriella GafniAlthough many accounts have been written about Patrick Leigh Fermor, the great travel writer, prose poet, adventurer and Renaissance man, few are more deeply personal and direct th...
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A Wiltshire Diary
Francis KilvertFrancis Kilvert's diary shows a compassionate and thoughtful delight in the people and beautiful surroundings of the English countryside. With good cheer he records his loves (amon...
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Escaping The Winter
Anne MustoeThe British winter: rain, heavy; trains, cancelled; Christmas, expensive. How many times have you thought that there might be an alternative to grey skies and cold weather one that...
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Ark Royal
Mike RossiterIn June 1941 the Ark Royal won one of Britain's most famous naval victories. The German destroyer, Bismarck, had been ravaging the British fleet in the Atlantic. Sailing through a ...
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Just Joe
Joe DuffyJoe Duffy takes the pulse of the Irish nation every day on Liveline. Whenever somebody wants to get something off their chest, the advice is often: “Talk to Joe”.Just Joe reveals t...
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Brideshead Abbreviated
John CraceJohn Crace's 'Digested Read' column in the Guardian has rightly acquired a cult following. Each week fans avidly devour his latest razorsharp literary assassination, while authors ...
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Forgotten Fruits
Christopher StocksIn Forgotten Fruits, Christopher Stocks tells the fascinating often rather bizarre stories behind Britain's rich heritage of fruit and vegetables. Take Newton Wonder apples, for ...