Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor

A Revelatory Collection Of Letters Written By The Author Of The Broken Road. Handsome, Spirited And Erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor Was A War Hero And 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 And 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 And His Tendency To Get Into Scrapes - Particularly When Drinking And, 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 And The Good, While Others Are Included Purely For The Joy Of The Jokes.