Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor was an English writer, scholar, soldier and polyglot. He played a prominent role in the Cretan resistance during the Second World War, and was widely seen as Britain's greatest living travel writer, on the basis of books such as A Time of Gifts (1977). A BBC journalist once termed him "a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene".
Sir Rupert Charles Hart-Davis was an English publisher and editor. He founded the publishing company Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd. As a biographer, he is remembered for his Hugh Walpole (1952), as an editor, for his Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde (1962), and, as both editor and part-author, for the Lyttelton/Hart-Davis Letters.
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich,, known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
Diana Cooper, Viscountess Norwich was an English actress and aristocrat who was a well-known social figure in London and Paris.
John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich,, known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian, travel writer, and television personality.
Viscount Norwich, of Aldwick in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 5 July 1952 for the Conservative politician, author and former ambassador to France, Sir Duff Cooper. He was the son of Sir Alfred Cooper and the husband of Lady Diana Manners. The second viscount, who succeeded his father in 1954, was a well-known historian, travel writer and television personality. As of 2021 the title is held by his son, the third viscount, who succeeded his father in 2018.
Sir Antony James Beevor, is a British military historian. He has published several popular historical works, mainly on the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, and most recently the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
A Time of Gifts (1977) is a travel book by British author Patrick Leigh Fermor. Published by John Murray when the author was 62, it is a memoir of the first part of Fermor's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933/34. The book has been hailed as a classic of travel writing; William Dalrymple called it a "sublime masterpiece".
Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, OBE, FRS, was a British chemist and geologist and the first president of the Indian National Science Academy and a director of the Geological Survey of India (1930-1935). His son was the writer and traveller Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor.
John Murray is a Scottish publisher, known for the authors it has published in its long history including Jane Austen, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Byron, Charles Lyell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herman Melville, Edward Whymper, Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, and Charles Darwin. Since 2004, it has been owned by conglomerate Lagardère under the Hachette UK brand.
George Psychoundakis BEM was a member of the Greek Resistance on Crete during the Second World War and after the war an author. Following the German invasion, between 1941 and 1945, he served as the dispatch runner for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) operations on Crete, as part of the Cretan resistance. During the postwar years he was at first mistakenly imprisoned as a deserter. While in prison he wrote his wartime memoirs, which were published as The Cretan Runner. Later he translated key classical Greek texts into the Cretan dialect.
Solvitur ambulando is a Latin phrase which means "it is solved by walking" and is used to refer to a problem which is solved by a practical experiment. It is often attributed to Saint Augustine.
The Literary Society is a London dining club, founded by William Wordsworth and others in 1807. Its members are generally either prominent figures in English literature or eminent people in other fields with a strong interest in literature. No papers are delivered at its meetings. It meets monthly at the Garrick Club. The Daily Telegraph's online site called the club "Britain's most distinguished and discreet literary dining club".
The kidnapping of Heinrich Kreipe was an operation executed jointly by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and local resistance members in Crete in German-occupied Greece during the Second World War. The operation was launched on 4 February 1944, when SOE officer Patrick Leigh Fermor landed in Crete with the intention of abducting notorious war criminal and commander of 22nd Air Landing Division, Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller. By the time of the arrival of the rest of the abduction team, led by William Stanley Moss, two months later, Müller had been succeeded by Heinrich Kreipe, who was chosen as the new target.
The Viannos massacres were a mass extermination campaign launched by German forces against the civilian residents of around 20 villages located in the areas of east Viannos and west Ierapetra provinces on the Greek island of Crete during World War II. The killings, with a death toll in excess of 500, were carried out on 14–16 September 1943 by Wehrmacht units. They were accompanied by the burning of most villages, looting, and the destruction of harvests.
Ben Downing is an American writer, editor, and teacher. Specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British social life and literature, he has written essays, articles, and reviews on figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Duff Cooper, Robert Byron, Anthony Powell, Peter Fleming, Wilfred Thesiger, and Patrick Leigh Fermor. His biography of Janet Ross, who for many years was the doyenne of Florence’s Anglo-American colony, was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Mani: Travels in the Southern Peloponnese is a travel book by English author Patrick Leigh Fermor, published in 1958. It covers his journey with wife Joan and friend Xan Fielding around the Mani peninsula in southern Greece.
The Broken Road (2013) is a travel book by British author Patrick Leigh Fermor. Published posthumously by John Murray, the book, edited and introduced by his biographer Artemis Cooper and travel writer Colin Thubron, narrates almost all of the final section of the author's journey on foot across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933 and '34.
Kimonas or Kimon Zografakis, frequently referred to by his nom de guerre, Black Man, was a distinguished Greek partisan in the Cretan resistance from 1941 to 1944 against the Axis occupation forces.
Adam Sisman is a British writer, editor and biographer. He received the National Book Critics Circle Award for his second book, Boswell's Presumptuous Task. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Professor of the University of St Andrews.
