A Time of Gifts
A Time of Gifts
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
Introduction by Jan Morris
"The finest traveling companion we could ever have...His head is stocked with enough cultural lore and poetic fancy to make every league an adventure."—Christopher Hudson, Evening Standard
"The greatest of living travel writers...an amazingly complex and subtle evocation of a place that is no more."—Jan Morris
This beloved account about an intrepid young Englishman on the first leg of his walk from London to Constantinople is simply one of the best works of travel literature ever written.
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.
Paperback
344 pages
NYBR Classics, 2005
Originally published 1977
5.1 x 8 inches
ISBN 9781590171653
European Literature, Travel Essays, Autobiography