FERMOR, Patrick Leigh. A Time of Gifts. On Foot to Constantinople: From the Hook of Holland to the Middle Danube. London, Murray, 1977.
8vo. Original blue cloth, upper board with gilt crane design, spine lettered in gilt, dustwrapper with design after John Craxton, not price-clipped, but with blank sticker over the price; pp. [viii], 291, portrait frontispiece after Valasa Cantacuzène, double-page map printed on eggshell paper; dust-wrapper with loss to foot of spine and wear to head and with very minor wear to margins in places only, otherwise a very fresh and bright copy.
First edition, first issue signed by the author on front fly-leaf. The first volume in Fermor's trilogy describing his journey on foot from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople through pre-war Europe, which takes the author from an enjoyable (albeit fruitless) bohemian existence in pre-war Mayfair, to a journey through Holland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, living as a mendicant dependant upon the charity of those he encountered. A Time of Gifts enjoyed remarkable success, and with its sequel, Between the Woods and the Water, confirmed Fermor as one of the leading post-war travel writers. A Time of Gifts is distinctly rarer than the second volume, particularly in such good condition.
#2122269