Dashing For The Post: The Letters Of Patrick Leigh Fermor

Product Description

A revelatory collection of letters written by the author of The Broken Road Handsome spirited & erudite Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero & 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 & 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 & his tendency to get into scrapes
- particularly when drinking & 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 & the good while others are included purely for the joy of the jokes