Hanging Out with the Churchills on Aristotle Onassis’s Yacht

Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915—2011), who was once described by the BBC as “a cross between Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene,” was regarded as one of the greatest travel writers of his time. His mostly autobiographical accounts of his adventures through prewar Europe, southern Greece, and the Caribbean are regarded as classics. The following letter was written to Ann Fleming, a British socialite whose third husband, Ian Fleming, was best known as the writer of the James Bond series.  

To Ann Fleming   c/o Niko Ghika
18 September 1954                                                                                                    Hydra

Darling Annie,

Very many apologies indeed from both of us (1) for neither having answered your lovely long letter, full of exactly the sort of thing one wants to hear—it was a masterpiece, and by far the best of any ex-Hydriot so It really kind of you to remember it. Joan is now in the thick of the first vol.—the second, which is reprinting, will follow soon, your bookseller says. It arrived just as we were about to run out of books. That green detective one, , which vanished so mysteriously, miraculously materialized on the hall table yesterday!