Patrick Leigh Fermor

In 1933, aged eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on his 'great trudge', a year-long journey by foot from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul. Three decades later he wrote A Time of Gifts, the sparklingly original account of the first part of this youthful adventure, which took him through the Low Countries, up the Rhine, through Germany, down the Danube, through Austria and Czechoslovakia, and as far as Hungary.

Alone, carrying only a rucksack and with a small allowance of only a pound a week, Fermor had planned to sleep rough - to live 'like a tramp, a pilgrim, or a wandering scholar' - but a chance introduction in Bavaria led to comfortable stays in castles, and provided a glimpse of the old Europe of princes and peasants.

The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary. Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania. The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already showing signs of the holocaust which was to come. Although frequently praised for his lyrical writing, Fermor's account also provides a coherent understanding of the dramatic events then unfolding in Middle Europe. But the delight remains in travelling with him in his picaresque journey past remote castles, mountain villages, monasteries and towering ranges. The concluding part of the trilogy will be published in September 2013 as The Broken Road.

Décembre 1933. Patrick Leigh Fermor, 19 ans, quitte l'Angleterre pour traverser l'Europe à pied jusqu'à Constantinople. De ce périple, il tirera un récit en trois volumes, chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature de voyage.

Décembre 1933. Patrick Leigh Fermor, 19 ans, quitte l'Angleterre pour traverser l'Europe à pied jusqu'à Constantinople. De ce périple, il tirera un récit en trois volumes, chef-d'oeuvre de la littérature de voyage.

A revelatory collection of letters written by the author of The Broken Road.Handsome, spirited and erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of his generation. He was also a spectacularly gifted friend. The letters in this collection span almost seventy years, the first written ten days before Paddy's twenty-fifth birthday, the last when he was ninety-four.

His correspondents include Deborah Devonshire, Ann Fleming, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Diana Cooper and his lifelong companion, Joan Rayner; he wrote his first letter to her in his cell at the monastery Saint Wandrille, the setting for his reflections on monastic life in A Time to Keep Silence. His letters exhibit many of his most engaging characteristics: his zest for life, his unending curiosity, his lyrical descriptive powers, his love of language, his exuberance and his tendency to get into scrapes - particularly when drinking and, quite separately, driving. Here are plenty of extraordinary stories: the hunt for Byron's slippers in one of the remotest regions of Greece; an ignominious dismissal from Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque; hiding behind a bush to dub Dirk Bogarde into Greek during the shooting of Ill Met by Moonlight, the film based on the story of General Kreipe's abduction; his extensive travels.

Some letters contain glimpses of the great and the good, while others are included purely for the joy of the jokes.

Paddy's exuberant letters contain glimpses of the great and the good: a chance conversation with the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, when Paddy opens the wrong door, or a glass of ouzo under the pine trees with Harold Macmillan. They describe encounters with such varied figures as Jackie Onassis, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Oswald Mosley and Peter Mandelson, while also relating adventures with the humble: a 'pick-nick' with the stonemasons at Kardamyli, or a drunken celebration in the Cretan mountains with his old comrades from the Resistance, most of them simple shepherds and goatherds. Paddy was at ease in any company - unfailingly charming, boyish, gentle and fun.

In the winter of 1933, eighteen-year-old Patrick ("Paddy") Leigh Fermor set out on a walk across Europe, starting in Holland and ending in Constantinople. Decades later, Leigh Fermor told the story of that life-changing journey in "A Time of Gifts" and "Between the Woods and the Water," works now celebrated as among the most vivid, absorbing, and beautifully written travel books of all time. "The Broken Road" is the account of the final leg of his journey, catching up with Paddy in the fall of 1934, following him through Bulgaria and Romania and ending in Greece. Days and nights on the road, spectacular landscapes and uncanny cities, friendships lost and found, leading the high life in Bucharest or camping out with fishermen and shepherds--such incidents and escapades are described with all the linguistic bravura and astonishing learning that Leigh Fermor is famous for, but also with a melancholy awareness of the passage of time. Throughout it we can hear the still-ringing voice of an irrepressible young man embarking on a life of adventure.

Quand j'eus émergé de ce raz-de-marée de sommeil, aucune exigence ne fut présentée à mon énergie nerveuse : pas de prélèvements automatiques, comme la conversation à table, les propos badins, les trains à attraper, les cent nécessités ordinaires et angoissantes qui polluent la vie quotidienne. Les raisons majeures de culpabilité et d'angoisse elles-mêmes avaient reculé dans les limbes distants : non seulement elles n'arrivaient pas à me tourmenter au creux de la nuit mais elles semblaient avoir perdu leur force intimidante de dragon. Ce nouvel état de grâce me laissait dix-neuf heures par jour de liberté absolue, divine." C'est en partageant la vie des moines que Patrick Leigh Fermor a découvert le sens du silence et de la solitude. Il nous invite à un voyage spirituel, littéraire et historique, chez les bénédictins de l'abbaye de Saint-Wandrille, à celle de Solesmes, chez les cisterciens de la Grande Trappe, et jusqu'aux origines du monachisme oriental dans les monastères rupestres de Cappadoce. Pour le romancier William Dalrymple, Un temps pour se taire est un "sublime chef-d'oeuvre".

Ο Πάτρικ Λη Φέρμορ, σε ηλικία 18 ετών, το 1933, αντί να ακολουθήσει τη στρατιωτική σταδιοδρομία για την οποία τον προόριζαν, περνάει τη Μάγχη και ξεκινάει να διασχίσει την Ευρώπη με τα πόδια, με προορισμό την Κωνσταντινούπολη. Υποκινημένος από την ασίγαστη περιέργειά του για τον κόσμο, θα πραγματοποιήσει αυτό το μυθικό κατόρθωμα, περνώντας από δοκιμασίες και περιπέτειες. "Η εποχή της δωρεάς", το συναρπαστικό χρονικό του νεανικού ταξιδιού του από την Ολλανδία μέχρι την ουγγρική μεθόριο τιμήθηκε το 1978 με το W. H. Smith Literary Award και χαρακτηρίστηκε ως ένα από τα ωραιότερα ταξιδιωτικά βιβλία του 20ού αιώνα.