IN TEARING HASTE (PB)

In spring 1956, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire invited the writer and war hero Patrick Leigh Fermor to visit Lismore Castle. This halcyon visit sparked off a deep friendship and a lifelong exchange of sporadic but highly entertaining letters. There can rarely have been such contrasting styles: Debo, unashamed philistine and self-professed illiterate (though suspected by her friends of being a secret reader), darts from subject to subject while Paddy, polyglot, widely read prose virtuoso, replies in the fluent, polished manner that has earned him recognition as one of the finest writers in the English language.