18 October, 2012
Heywood Hill helped organise a launch party with a difference last night for Artemis Cooper’s superb biography of Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor at the Travellers Club.
In tribute to Paddy, Artemis Cooper led a clutch of distinguished travel writers, and other PLF disciples, through Mayfair to the Travellers Club. Colin Thubron, Jason Goodwin, Sara Wheeler, Justin Marozzi [who wrote up the jaunt for Standpoint magazine] and Robert Macfarlane, among many others.
Nicky Dunne, Chairman of Heywood Hill, said, ‘Patrick Leigh Fermor could have sprung from the pages of Cervantes or Homer. At Heywood Hill we revere Paddy for his courage, his style as a writer and his impeccable manners. He was a lifelong romantic, keeping an account at our shop for Princess Balasha Cantacuzene, the love of his youth so that she would never run out of well-chosen reading. This remains a very good way to keep in somebody’s good books. Our little shop was one of the landmarks in Paddy’s London life, and we wanted to honour his memory by helping to organise tonight’s party.’