
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Noble Encounters between Budapest and Transylvania
Michael O'Sullivan(Author)
Central European University Press
Published on 20. May 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
310 pages
978-615-5225-64-2 (ISBN)
Description
This book revisits the trajectory of one section of Patrick Leigh Fermor's famous excursion on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in the 1930s. The highly regarded British travel writer and heroic wartime Special Operations Executive officer walked into Hungary as a youth of 19 at Easter and left Transylvania in August 1934. This intrepid traveler, "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene" as the New York Times obituary put it in 2011, published his experiences half a century later. Between the Woods and the Water, that covers the part of the epic foot journey from the middle Danube to the Iron Gates, has been a bestseller since it was first published in 1986. In the present volume Michael O'Sullivan reveals the identity of the interesting characters in the travelogue, interviewing several of them eyetoeye. The many counts and barons among his 1934 contacts are a proof of Leigh Fermor's lifelong attraction to the aristocracy. Rich with photos and other documents on places and persons both from the thirties and today, the book offers a compelling social and political history of the period and the area. It provides a particular portrait of Hungary and Transylvania when they were on the brink of momentous change.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
Hungary
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academic
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
376 gr
ISBN-13
978-615-5225-64-2 (9786155225642)
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

E-Book
05/2018
Central European University Press
€29.49
Available for download
Person
He was Vienna correspondent of the London Independent and later worked on both the Foreign and Parliamentary desks of Ireland's national broadcasting service RTE. He is the author of bestselling biographies of Mary Robinson, Ireland's first woman president and later UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He has also written biographies of the founding father of the modern Irish state, Sean Lemass and of the playwright Brendan Behan.
Content
Acknowledgements
Note on Personal Names, Place Names and Hungarian Titles
Introduction
Prologue. The Bridge at Esztergom
I. Budapest
II. Across the Alfoeld-The Great Hungarian Plain
III. The Banat
IV. Transylvania
Xenia
'Istvan'
V. Epilogue. Return to Budapest
Bibliography
Index
Note on Personal Names, Place Names and Hungarian Titles
Introduction
Prologue. The Bridge at Esztergom
I. Budapest
II. Across the Alfoeld-The Great Hungarian Plain
III. The Banat
IV. Transylvania
Xenia
'Istvan'
V. Epilogue. Return to Budapest
Bibliography
Index