To call Patrick Leigh Fermor just a travel writer is like calling Fred Astaire just a tap dancer; the description says nothing about the talent. His best-known book, A Time of Gifts, an account of his trip by foot through Europe from 1933 to 1934, published in 1977, glitters with acuity and wit. No wonder his letters are such gems to read, and in Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Life in Letters editor Adam Sisman does justice to a man who, right up until he died, at 96 in 2011, spun literature from his own adventurous life.
—Jim Kelly, Vanity Fair
Called Paddy by his legion of friends, Patrick Leigh Fermor struck many as a paragon of zest, a man on whom scarcely a crumb of life’s banquet was wasted. Prodigiously smart, charming, funny and handsome as well, he dazzled most who met him…. For all their beau monde glitter, Leigh Fermor’s letters are touching in a universally appreciable way.
—Ben Downing, Wall Street Journal
If letters are a lost art, you wouldn't know it from reading this lively collection… Fans of Fermor's travelogues will recognize incidents, and readers new to him will find this a good introduction. Recounting triumph and tragedy, these letters help round out a portrait of a writer who had long ago reconciled himself to a minor role in literary history—but who deserves a wide readership all the same.
—Kirkus Reviews
Few people have lived as peripatetic a life as did travel writer Fermor. Even leaving aside the adventures that made his reputation—his walk from Holland to Istanbul and his activities during WWII as a resistance leader in Nazi-occupied Crete—he spent most of his life flitting from place to place….Through it all, he maintained a voluminous correspondence with a veritable who’s who of famous friends, including Diana Cooper, Lawrence Durrell, and Ann Fleming. His letters have a breezy, insouciant quality that’s charming….Above all, Fermor had a brilliant knack for capturing vivid details.
—Publishers Weekly
Zestful, vivid, and buoyant with polymathic learning, Leigh Fermor’s letters reveal themselves perfect for anthology. There are descriptions and anecdotes equal to anything in his writing, spurred by memorable friendships, suffused with affection and occasional distress: all finely edited by Adam Sisman.
—Colin Thubron
Hugely entertaining, funny and occasionally moving...edited meticulously and brilliantly.
—The Observer
Zest, verbal finesse, almost pristine receptivity and a richly informed cultural and historical consciousness make these letters, even when the erosions of time and illness shadow them, irresistibly exhilarating.
—The Sunday Times
Adam Sisman is a model editor.... Reading these letters is like gobbling down a tray of exotically filled chocolates, with no horrible orange creams to put you off.
—Harry Mount, Literary Review
Adam Sisman’s selection of Patrick Leigh Fermor’s letters is entirely admirable . . . an unmissable feast.
—Daily Telegraph
Here is a veritable feast for fans of Paddy Leigh Fermor . . . Sisman has done a tremendous job selecting and editing this treasure-trove of letters.
—Justin Marozzi, The Spectator
Superb . . . Adam Sisman has done an excellent job of selecting and editing these letters, almost any one of which would have been a joy to receive.
—Times Literary Supplement
This is one of those books that make you feel a little bereft when you finish it.
—Catholic Herald
To read these letters and their superb footnotes is to walk with some of the great ghosts of twentieth-century literature.
—Oldie
Oh joy! The wit, the humour, and the dazzling intelligence make this, for me, the most unputdownable book of the year.
—Country Life
