Inscribed to the socialite Lady Oranmore (Guinness)

Fermor, Patrick Leigh ~ Mani. Travels in the Southern Peloponnese : Signed By The Author In The Year Of Publication

First UK Printing : John Murray, London : 1958

8vo., brick red publisher’s cloth with mermaid device in gilt to lower corner of front board; backstrip lettered in gilt; in the original blue, yellow and black John Craxton dust wrapper (clipped, retaining price of 18s net), with a black and white photograph of the author to the front flap; and together with the scarce book society choice wraparound Band; frontis illustration and gecko device to title page also by Craxton; map of the Gulf of Messenia by John Woodcock and a further 26 captioned photographs throughout by Joan Eyres Monsell; THE BOOK a near Fine example, slightly pushed at spine tips; a little light spotting to the outer edges of the text block; a little offsetting to endpapers; the Very Good WRAPPER retaining much of its original brightness, slightly browned at the edges and folds, with a little more toning to the lower panel; some minor rubbing, creasing, and nicks at extremities; with a couple of light scratches; the wraparound with one small nick and vertical crease along the spine (likely at one point kept flat); a lovely example thus. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First edition. This copy inscribed by the author in the year of publication: “To ‘Oonagh / with lots of love / from / Paddy / Nov. 1958.” The recipient Oonagh Guinness [Lady Oranmore] was a prominent hostess, living at the Luggala Estate which became a centre of Irish social life: “Oonagh somehow imbued Luggala with enchantment. Nobody could keep away: Dublin intelligentsia, literati, painters, actors, scholars, hangers-on, toffs, punters, poets, social hang-gliders were attracted to Luggala as to nowhere else in Ireland - perhaps even Europe, from where many would come. And the still centre of this exultant, exuberant chaos was Oonagh.” (Michael Luke: The Independent, 1995). Along with other such noted figures as Brendan Behan, Sean O’Casey and Lucian Freud, Fermor was a regular visitor to the estate. In 1953 it is noted that he became involved in a fight at the Kildare Hunt Club ball, having apparently asked an indelicate question about what they did with the fox after it was killed. Together with the novel comes a copy of the London Magazine, this issue Volume 6, from May 1959. Page 75 provides a lengthy review of Mani by Alan Ross, which explores this, his first work on a series of ‘private invasions of Greece’. The write-up includes many positive points: “His virtues consist of an inspiring curiosity that is both deep and wide, a terrier-like persistence in worrying out obscure facts, enthusiasm, scholarship, initiative, affable, austere (in certain respects)...” as well as a few negative “He is…often needlessly over-elaborate, so that one is in constant need of mental sorbets halfway through”. Mani remains one of Patrick Leigh-Fermor’s best-loved works, and along with Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (1966), the books give a first-hand account of the writer’s travels into some of the more remote parts of the country. Later in life, and together with his wife Joan, the writer settled in the Mani peninsula, living in a house near the town of Kardamyli. A scarce copy to find with such attributes.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Near Fine
JACKET: Very Good