Patrick Leigh Fermor | Series of six autograph letters signed, to Mrs Holland, on Greece and Byron, 1940-54

Patrick Leigh Fermor

Six autograph letters signed, to Mr and Mrs Holland

writing whilst training for Special Operations during World War II ("...I am hoping madly to be sent to Greece...I think the Greeks are a splendid race, and [...] if they had the planes and equipment, which, alas, they have not, would walk over the Italians...")

writing ahead of a later trip to Greece asking for the contact details that would allow him to "retrieve Lord Byron's shoes now in the care of a citizen of Missolonghi"

"masses of Byron letter and Byroniana of various kinds, including his Greco-Albanian costume" which they had seen together when visiting Lady Wentworth,  

referring to his novel and planned travel writing, 

the eccentricities of the Cavalry Club ("... a wonderful collection of venerable centaurs in drain-pipe trousers and gigantic moustaches...")

with pen and ink sketch of a figure in Greek dress

20 pages, 4to and folio, "Intelligence Training Centre, Matlock, Derbyshire", Rome, Pacy-sur-Eure, Cavalry Club, Travellers' Club, and Bognor Regis, 31 October 1940 to 23 March 1954

visited her at Balcombe

several letters refer to Lady Wentworth's Byroniana