George Katsimbalis (The New Griffon, Athens) - Patrick Leigh-Fermor (Inscribed)
FERMOR, Patrick Leigh. George Katsimbalis. The New Griffon, New Series, third issue. Athens: Gennadius Library/American Library of Classical Studies, 1998. pp 11-14.
A 4-page piece by Patrick Leigh Fermor on George Katsimbalis (1898-1978), published here for the first time in English (the text had been published in a Greek translation by the poet D.I. Antoniou in Nea Hestia, November 1980). In this article Fermor recalls how he met Katsimbalis in Athens in 1940 in the smoke and noise of the Argentina nightclub, traces their friendship, and offers a vivid portrait of this charismatic literary impresario, and hero of Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.
Following his legendary trans-European walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople 1933-5, Patrick Leigh Fermor spent the rest of the 1930s mostly in Romania with his first love, Princess Balasa Cantacuzene. During the Second World War he fought in Greece, where together with a group of partisans, organized the audacious abduction of General Kreipe, leader of the German forces in Crete. Fermor developed a strong attachment to Greece, a country where he spent a considerable of time, and where he eventually settled permanently in the 1960s. In Greece, Fermor became part of an Anglo-Greek circle that included George Katsimbalis, Niko Ghika, George Seferis, John Craxton, Osbert Lancaster, Rex Warner, and others.
This is a presentation copy inscribed by Patrick Leigh Fermor to his friend, Natasha Spender ‘with much love’, dated 'Dumbleton, 24 Aug 2000'. The inscription is embellished with Fermor’s ink drawings of clouds and birds. Additionally, there are a couple of ink annotations by Fermor to his Katsimbalis article. From the library of Stephen and Natasha Spender, with their bookplate designed by John Craxton.
Natasha Spender (1919-2010) was a concert pianist, academic, and wife of the poet Stephen Spender. She made history in 1947, performing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat at the Last Night of the Proms—the first concert in the world to be televised.
55 pp, b/w photo of Patrick Leigh Fermor with George Katsimbalis and George Seferis, b/w illustrations. Original wrappers (19.5x14 cm). Light crease to front wrapper. Very good.