A Time Of Gifts
Encyclopedia
A Time of Gifts is regarded by many critics as one of the classics of travel literature
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...

. Written by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor
Sir Patrick "Paddy" Michael Leigh Fermor, DSO, OBE was a British author, scholar and soldier, who played a prominent role behind the lines in the Cretan resistance during World War II. He was widely regarded as "Britain's greatest living travel writer", with books including his classic A Time of...

 and published by John Murray
John Murray (publisher)
John Murray is an English publisher, renowned for the authors it has published in its history, including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, and Charles Darwin...

 in 1977 when the author was 62, it is an account of the first part of the author's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 in 1933/34. The introduction is a letter to his wartime colleague Xan Fielding
Xan Fielding
Xan Fielding, born Alexander Wallace Fielding DSO , was a British soldier and writer, noted for his English translations of Planet of the Apes and The Bridge on the River Kwai, both by Pierre Boulle....

. The title comes from a poem by Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...

.

A Time of Gifts recounts his journey as far as the Middle Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

. A second volume, Between the Woods and the Water (1986), begins with the author crossing the Mária Valéria bridge
Mária Valéria bridge
The Mária Valéria bridge joins Esztergom in Hungary and Štúrovo in Slovakia, across the River Danube. The bridge is some 500 metres in length...

 from Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 into Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 and ends when he reaches the Iron Gate
Iron Gate (Danube)
The Iron Gates The gorge lies between Romania in the north and Serbia in the south. At this point, the river separates the southern Carpathian Mountains from the northwestern foothills of the Balkan Mountains. The Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Turkish, German and Bulgarian names literally mean...

, where the Danube formed the boundary between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

 and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. A planned third volume, of Leigh Fermor's journey to its completion in Constantinople, was never completed, but Colin Thubron
Colin Thubron
Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, CBE is a British travel writer and novelist.In 2008, The Times ranked him 45th on their list of the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times, The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times. His books...

 (Leigh Fermor's friend and executor
Executor
An executor, in the broadest sense, is one who carries something out .-Overview:...

) writes that a "near-finished version" exists and will someday be published.

Description

Many years after his travel, Leigh Fermor's diary of the journey was found in a castle in Romania and returned to him. He used it in his writing of the book, which also drew on the knowledge he had accumulated in the intervening years. Having the diary enabled him to express the excitement of a young man's encounters and discoveries.

In the book, he conveys the immediacy and excitement of an 18-year-old boy's reactions to a great adventure, deepened by the retrospective reflections of the cultured and sophisticated man of the world which he became. He travelled in Europe before the Communists had taken over the East, when monarchies survived in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

, and remnants of the old regime were to be seen in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 and Hungary. In Germany Hitler had recently come to power but most of his abuses were not yet evident.

Leigh Fermor's knowledge of European history, art and culture gives his work a deep basis. It is much more than a travelogue
Travel literature
Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or...

. He conveys the characters of an array of people, from the inhabitants of workers' hostel
Hostel
Hostels provide budget oriented, sociable accommodation where guests can rent a bed, usually a bunk bed, in a dormitory and share a bathroom, lounge and sometimes a kitchen. Rooms can be mixed or single-sex, although private rooms may also be available...

s to down-on-their luck Austrian counts at home in their castles. He writes how the landscapes and the human physical types he encountered were familiar from the Dutch and German masters.

Honours

  • 1978: WH Smith Literary Award
    WH Smith Literary Award
    The WH Smith Literary Award was an award founded in 1959 by British high street retailer W H Smith. Its founding aim was stated to be to "encourage and bring international esteem to authors of the British Commonwealth"; originally open to all residents of the UK, the Commonwealth and the Republic...

  • 1986: Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
    Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
    The Thomas Cook Travel Book Award originated as an initiative of Thomas Cook AG in 1980, with the aim of encouraging and rewarding the art of literary travel writing. The awards stopped in 2005...

    (for Between the Woods & the Water)
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