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- George Katsimbalis (The New Griffon, Athens) - Patrick Leigh-Fermor (Inscribed)
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), a hugely influential figure in Greek modern literature, and hero of Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi. This article is 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). 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.
This copy is inscribed by Patrick Leigh Fermor to Natasha [Spender] ‘with much love’, and is dated 'Dumbleton, 24 Aug 2000'. The inscription is embellished with Fermor’s ink drawings of clouds and birds. There are also a couple of ink annotations by Fermor to his Katsimbalis article. With Stephen and Natasha Spender’s bookplate, designed by John Craxton.
Natasha Spender (1919-2010), concert pianist, academic, and wife of the poet Stephen Spender. Lady Spender was a strikingly attractive woman, numbering Raymond Chandler among her admirers.
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.