The Rash Adventurer: A Life of John Pendlebury [Hardcover]

Imogen Grundon (Author), Patrick Leigh Fermor (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1901965066 | ISBN-13: 978-1901965063 | Publication Date: April 2, 2007

John Pendlebury (1904-41), the "Cretan Lawrence", was shot in the first months of the German occupation of Crete while organizing bands of guerrillas to fight the invaders. Not a professional soldier, Pendlebury was chosen for the task because of his intimate knowledge of Crete, its people and language, acquired through his years of archaeological experience on the island. As Curator at Knossos, successor to Sir Arthur Evans, his athleticism and taste for adventure has taken him all over the island in search of ancient sites. Pendlebury's passion for the ancient world also took him to Egypt, where he was Director of the excavations at Tell el-Amarna, city of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti. At Cambridge in the mid 1920s he won a Blue for athletics, competing with contemporaries such as Lord Burghley, and a first class degree in Classics and Archaeology. In this, the first biography of John Pendlebury, Imogen Grundon constructs a vivid picture of a brilliant and charismatic scholar-hero, whose life was lived, and ultimately lost, by an ideal of romantic chivalry.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Grundon has produced a remarkable biography, imbued with the spirit of place as well as the ghost of this memorable hero.-Anthony Beevor

About the Author

Imogen Grundon is an archaeologist, surveyor and investigator of historic buildings. As an archaeologist, she worked in the Middle East, including four seasons at Tell el-Amarna. She also worked in Greece, at Mycenae, and in Crete, at Palaikastro and Knossos. She now investigates the history and development of historic buildings in Britain as well as continuing survey work abroad. She currently lives in Cambridge. For further information on her work and on the research surrounding this book, please visit http://www.imogengrundon.com . Patrick Leigh Fermor is one of Britain's best-loved writers. Beginning his travels at the age of seventeen, he walked from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople in 1933, a two-year journey he recounted in A Time of Gifts (1977) and Between the Woods and the Water (1986). He is currently working on the third volume. He was appointed as Greek liaison officer in 1940/1, and was dropped by parachute at night on the Lasithi Plain. He conceived and carried out one of the most daring exploits of the Second World War, the kidnap and smuggling to Egypt of the German General Kreipe. The story was recorded in the book Ill Met By Moonlight (1950), which was made into a film with Dirk Bogarde playing Patrick Leigh Fermor. After the war, he wrote books on his travels in Greece and elsewhere. A collection of his less well-known writings was recently published in Words of Mercury (2003).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Libri Publications (April 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1901965066
• ISBN-13: 978-1901965063
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,045,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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