Product Description

In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary.

It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic.

First published to enormous acclaim, it confirmed Fermor's reputation as the greatest living travel writer, and has, together with its sequel Between the Woods and the Water (the third volume is famously yet to be published), been a perennial seller for 25 years. (20040801)

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3864 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Jan Morris
' Nothing short of a masterpiece'

Review
' Nothing short of a masterpiece' (Jan Morris )

'A treasure chest of descriptive writing' (Spectator )

'Not only is the 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 Telegraph )

'Every page of this book is distinguished by an image, a metaphor, a flash of humour always original and sometimes as incisive as a laser beam.' (Vincent Cronin )

'A tremendous journey ... and he's fabulous company' (Manchester Evening News )

' This is a traveller's tale at its infectious and informative best; vividly remembered and beautifully written' (Church Times )

'John Murray is doing the decent thing and reissuing all of Leigh Fermor's main books ... But what else would you expect from a publisher whose commitment to geography is such that for more than two centuries it has widened our understanding of the world?' (Geographical Magazine )

'Rightly considered to be among the most beautiful travel books in the language' (Independent )

'Bringing the landscape alive as no other writer can, he uses his profound and eclectic understanding of cultures and peoples ... to paint vivid pictures - nobody has illuminated the geography of Europe better' (Geographical Magazine )

Manchester Evening News
'A tremendous journey ... and he's fabulous company'

Customer Reviews

Inspired and Inspiring
Leigh Fermor's novel about his walk across a long-lost europe is somthing special and unique. It brings back to life a place and time that few rarley glimpsed and is now totally lost. It shows us, through Leigh Fermors unique knowlage of history and literature, a different and wonderful landscape of europe which enchants and entertains. In our suspucious un-trusting urban city lives, this book is a great reminder of how things were, and how they could be.

Great travel classic and much more
Leigh Fermor's great classic is extraordinary. His language is immensely beautiful, but I beleive that the secret to understand the book is that he is actually painting pictures with words. There are some great set pieces: the walk in Holland, breakfast in Rottterdam, the cold, the chateau life he began to lead after Munich. He is a polymath and the book is not really travel literature at all, or if it is, it is of a totally different order to anything I have ever read. Will Leigh Fermor write the promised third part of the great trilogy?

A Time of Gifts
This book and it's companion Between the Woods and the Water are an enchantment rather than a literary experience. The printed words disolve instantly into brilliant pictures: sodden, grey London in December; magical images conjoured from distorted light on ripples of oily Thames water; magestic images of Storks soaring above red tiled rooves in Hungary, the keen bite of the wind coming over snow fields in Holland and the exhillaration of a sledge rushing over a frozen river. This is hardly prose at all, and sometimes it seems to get to somewhere beyond poetry.