A Time of Gifts
A John Murray Journey
Published on 8. July 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-5293-6952-6 (ISBN)
Description
INTRODUCED BY JAN MORRIS
'[This] gloriously ornate account of that epic journey is a classic' ROBERT MACFARLANE
'The feeling of being lost in time and geography with months and years hazily sparkling ahead is a prospect of inconjecturable magic.'
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.
Hailed as a masterpiece, A Time of Gifts is in part a coming-of-age memoir, but it is also a rich and compelling portrait of a continent that - despite its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers and grand cities - was soon to be swept away by war, modernisation and profound social change.
'Not only is this journey one of physical adventure but of cultural awakening. Architecture, art, genealogy, quirks of history and language are all devoured -- and here passed on -- with a gusto uniquely his' COLIN THUBRON, SUNDAY TIMES
'One of the most romantic books of the twentieth century, Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of a long walk across Europe is also a literary treasure, a rich blend of action and observation' GUARDIAN
'[This] gloriously ornate account of that epic journey is a classic' ROBERT MACFARLANE
'The feeling of being lost in time and geography with months and years hazily sparkling ahead is a prospect of inconjecturable magic.'
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.
Hailed as a masterpiece, A Time of Gifts is in part a coming-of-age memoir, but it is also a rich and compelling portrait of a continent that - despite its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers and grand cities - was soon to be swept away by war, modernisation and profound social change.
'Not only is this journey one of physical adventure but of cultural awakening. Architecture, art, genealogy, quirks of history and language are all devoured -- and here passed on -- with a gusto uniquely his' COLIN THUBRON, SUNDAY TIMES
'One of the most romantic books of the twentieth century, Patrick Leigh Fermor's account of a long walk across Europe is also a literary treasure, a rich blend of action and observation' GUARDIAN
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
frontispiece and map
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 32 mm
Weight
276 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5293-6952-6 (9781529369526)
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
Previous edition
Patrick Leigh Fermor
A Time of Gifts
On Foot to Constantinople: from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube
Book
03/2004
John Murray Publishers Ltd
€33.61
Article exhausted; check for reprint
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.