Books

3 vols., 8vo., First Edition, with fine portrait frontispiece, second portrait and 4 maps (2 double-page on coloured stock), third volume with patterned endpapers; cloth (blue/blue/grey respectively), first two volumes with upper boards and backstrips blocked and lettred in gilt, third volume with backstrip lettered in silver, fore-edges very faintly spotted else a near fine set in dustwrapper. The set comprises: A Time of Gifts. On Foot to Constantinople from the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube. [With Introductory Letter to Xan Fielding] (1977); Between the Woods and the Water: The Middle Danube to the Iron Gates (1986); The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos (2013). Paddy Leigh Fermor's vivid account of his personal odyssey. In 1933, aged 18, he set out to walk from Hook of Holland to Constantinople. In recording his journey he created what is now generally recognised as a masterpiece of twentieth century travelogue. The text of the final volume is edited from manuscripts by Fermor's literary executors Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper. Fermor's unforgettable descriptions are enlivened by John Craxton's wonderful dustwrappers. COMPLETE SETS ARE EXTREMELY SCARCE IN THIS CONDITION.

The narrative continues Patrick Leigh Fermor's epic journey across Europe, on foot before the advent of World War II.