These three letters were written by Patrick Leigh Fermor to his wife in 1971, when he was journeying through Peru with a group of friends. A few minor Andean peaks were climbed -- though not by the author -- and a number of the more popular sights were visited briefly. Yet for anyone looking for the key to the author's fascination as a travel writer, the clues are all here. His characteristic sense of wonder, his scholarship, which makes brief but effective appearances, and his professionalism, in foregoing pleasure jaunts so that he could write up his impressions while they were still fresh.

In 1971 the celebrated traveller Patrick Leigh Fermor accompanied five friends on a remarkable journey into the high Andes of Peru. His adventure took him from Cuzco to Urubamba, on to Puno and Juli on Lake Titicaca, down to Arequipa and finally back to Lima. The expedition was led by a writer and poet and the party included a Swiss international skier and jeweller, a social anthropologist from Provence and a Nottinghamshire farming squire - all seasoned mountaineers. The other two participants - the author himself and a botany-loving duke - were complete novices. As the group travelled from Lima into increasingly remote parts of the country, Leigh Fermor captured their experiences in a series of letters to his wife. Whether recounting the thrill of crossing a glacier, the rigours of campsite life under a blanket of snow, their lively encounters with locals or the strangely moving sight of a lone condor circling in the sky, the author vividly conveys the excitement of discovery and the intense uniqueness of the land.

Patrick Leigh Fermor’s enviably colorful life took off when in 1934, at the age of eighteen, he decided to walk across Europe. In just over a year he had trekked through nine countries and taught himself three languages, and his enthusiasm and curiosity for every kind of experience made him equally happy in caves or country houses, among shepherds or countesses. At the outbreak of war he left his lover, Princess Balasha Cantacuzene, in Romania and returned to England to enlist. Commissioned into the Intelligence Corps, he became one of the handful of Allied officers supporting the Cretan resistance to the German occupation. In 1944 he commanded the Anglo-Cretan team that abducted General Heinrich Kreipe and spirited him away to Egypt. A journey to the Caribbean, stays in monasteries, and explorations all over Greece provided the subjects for his first books. It was not until he and his wife had moved to southern Greece that he returned to his earliest walk. In these books, which took many years to write, he created a vision of a prewar Europe, which in its beauty and abundance has never been equaled. Artemis Cooper has drawn on years of interviews and conversations with Leigh Fermor and his closest friends, and has had complete access to his archive. Her beautifully crafted biography portrays a man of extraordinary gifts—no one wore their learning so playfully nor inspired such passionate friendship.

A masterly anthology of extracts from the journals and writings of travelers, explorers, and adventurers throughout history, taking the reader on one unforgettable journey for each day of the year Inviting readers to cross ocean, desert, mountain, and ice-cap in the company of the world's greatest explorers, wanderers, and writers, this day-by-day anthology of travel writing ranges widely across time as well as place: from Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the West Indies in 1492 to Anton Chekhov's journey through Siberia in the 19th century and on to Wilfred Thesiger's wanderings in Arabia's "empty quarter" in the 1940s. Each quoted extract is accompanied by a brief commentary that intro­duces the writer and establishes the context of the excerpt, while integrated paintings and black and white etchings chime with the period of the chosen extracts. The itinerary offers the astonishment of the 17th-century diarist John Evelyn on beholding the size of women's shoes in Venice; the stoic courage of Captain Scott facing death at 40 degrees below zero; the exasperation of Dylan Thomas at find­ing himself in a "stifflipped, liverish, British Guest House in puking Abadan;" and the philosophical introspection of Fridtjof Nansen as he drifts in an "interminable and rigid world" of Arctic ice. Readers will find Napoleon's travel tips to his niece, a flight over Germany with Hitler, and an ex-pat dinner in Morocco where human blood is served from the fridge by the pint. Covering the whole calendar, including leap years, these 366 journeys are by turn lyrical, witty, tragic, and bizarre—but always entertaining.

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.

An authentic historical novel about the harshness of life of missionaries in South America in the first half of the 20th century. Based on extensive research of the author’s grandparents. A vivid memoir which explores how the richness of our lives depends on the quality of our relationships. SS Orita. Mid-atlantic. 1904 “Everything I had ever known was behind me and I had only the vaguest idea about where I was going. What if I had made an awful mistake?” Beatrice, newly wedded wife of Stuart McNairn – a recently qualified Evangelical missionary – is on her way to Cuzco, a town in Peru, which has persecuted English missionaries who have gone before. Their mission is to convert the native Indian population from the corruption and oppression of the Catholic Church which has crushed them into poverty and idolatry. But life in Cuzco is hard; disease, poverty and alcohol claim many lives. Beatrice and her husband, Mac, face both fierce opposition and physical hardship, which tests their relationship to its limits. In this fictional memoir, based on true events, we follow Beatrice through both good times and bad, in a life-time of self-discovery. Holding the Threads explores our sense of belonging and the connections we make with the past, the present and with future generations.

Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.

Now in paperback, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Deborah Devonshire's witty, informative, and altogether delightful correspondence. In the spring of 1956, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, youngest of the six legendary Mitford sisters, invited the writer and war hero Patrick Leigh Fermor to visit Lismore Castle, the Devonshires’ house in Ireland. The halcyon visit sparked a deep friendship and a lifelong exchange of highly entertaining correspondence.

This work examines the valley of the Urubamba River in terms of vertical zonation, Incan impact on the environment, plant use, the history of exploration and the notion of discovery, the idea of land reform, and cultural contact with the European world. Winding its path northward from the Andean Highlands to the Amazon, the valley has served as the stage of pre-Columbian civilizations and focal point of Spanish conquest in Peru. "Gade left behind not only a superb body of scholarly work, but a network of colleagues and students who remain indebted to his example. This book should serve as an inspiration for all scholars who wish to pursue the Sauerian, counter enlightenment or post development agendas of understanding and respecting particular places in all their historical and cultural complexity, including ambiguities and contradictions." -- The Geographical Review, American Geographical Society