A Time of Gifts
On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
Will be published approx. on 16. July 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-3998-3685-2 (ISBN)
Description
WITH A FOREWORD BY JAN MORRIS
'A treasure chest' Spectator
'A masterpiece' William Dalrymple, Financial Times
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. Alone, carrying only a rucksack and a small allowance, he travelled through the Low Countries, up the Rhine, through Germany, down the Danube, through Austria and Czechoslovakia, and as far as Hungary.
Hailed as a masterpiece, A Time of Gifts is in part a coming-of-age memoir, but also a rich and compelling portrait of a continent that - despite its resplendent domes and monasteries, great rivers and grand cities - was soon to be swept away by war, modernisation and profound social change.
'Rightly considered to be among the most beautiful travel books in the language' Independent
'A treasure chest' Spectator
'A masterpiece' William Dalrymple, Financial Times
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. Alone, carrying only a rucksack and a small allowance, he travelled through the Low Countries, up the Rhine, through Germany, down the Danube, through Austria and Czechoslovakia, and as far as Hungary.
Hailed as a masterpiece, A Time of Gifts is in part a coming-of-age memoir, but also a rich and compelling portrait of a continent that - despite its resplendent domes and monasteries, great rivers and grand cities - was soon to be swept away by war, modernisation and profound social change.
'Rightly considered to be among the most beautiful travel books in the language' Independent
Reviews / Votes
[Fermor's] gloriously ornate account of that epic journey is a classic of what we might call the 'literature of the leg' * Robert Macfarlane, Waitrose Weekend *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Illustrations
N/A
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-3998-3685-2 (9781399836852)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Patrick Leigh Fermor
A Time of Gifts
On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
E-Book
10/2010
John Murray Learning
€5.49
Available for download
Person
In December 1933, at the age of eighteen, Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) walked across Europe, reaching Constantinople in early 1935. He travelled on into Greece, where in Athens he met Balasha Cantacuzene, with whom he lived - mostly in Rumania - until the outbreak of war. Serving in occupied Crete, he led a successful operation to kidnap a German general, for which he won the DSO and was once described by the BBC as 'a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene'. After the war he began writing, and travelled extensively round Greece with Joan Eyres Monsell whom he later married. Towards the end of his life he wrote the first two books about his early trans-European odyssey, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. He planned a third, unfinished at the time of his death in 2011, which has since been edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper and published as The Broken Road.