Acc.13338 Revised November 2014 Inventory Acc.13338 Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor Archive (Presented, by the John R Murray Charitable Trust, 2012) National Library of Scotland Manuscripts Division George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EW Tel: 0131-623 3876 Fax: 0131-623 3866 E-mail:
[email protected] © National Library of Scotland GB 233 Acc.13338 Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor Archive Circa 1934-2011 Fonds 16 metres Personal and literary papers of Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (1915-2011), travel writer Patrick “Paddy” Leigh Fermor was born and educated in England. Between 1933 and 1935 he travelled, largely on foot, from Rotterdam to Istanbul, then onwards to Mount Athos in Greece. Much later in life, he wrote two of his most celebrated books, „A Time of Gifts‟ (1977) and „Between the Woods and the Water‟ (1986), about part of this journey. A third posthumous volume, „The Broken Road‟ (2013), edited by Colin Thubron and Artemis Cooper, was based on „The Green Diary‟ (his only surviving diary from the journey) and a draft from the 1960s entitled „A Youthful Journey‟. He met the Romanian princess Balasha Cantacuzène in Athens in 1935, and the two lived together at Lemonodassos, Greece, and then at the Cantacuzène estate in Băleni, Romania, until the outbreak of war in 1939. Working as a Special Operations Executive officer behind enemy lines in Crete during World War II, he led the party that kidnapped the German General Heinrich Kreipe. The story of the abduction was later adapted into a film, „Ill Met by Moonlight‟ (1957), based on the 1950 book of the same name by Leigh Fermor‟s second in command, William Stanley Moss.