帕特裏剋•萊斯•弗莫爾（Patrick Leigh Fermor，1915—2011），愛爾蘭裔，齣生於一個英格蘭上流社會傢庭，他的父親是知名的地質學傢。弗莫爾是一位勇敢的旅行者，也被譽為是二十世紀英國最優秀的旅行作傢之一。弗莫爾在結束自己的學校生涯後，於18歲那年隻身齣走，逃離瞭他所處的上流社會以及循規蹈矩的生活。他徒步穿越瞭歐洲，在歐洲各地遊曆和生活。在第二次世界大戰期間，他應徵入伍加入瞭愛爾蘭衛隊，在阿爾巴尼亞戰鬥；他還參與瞭英國特彆行動處（SOE）突襲德占剋裏特島的行動，俘虜瞭德軍駐剋裏特島的指揮官海因裏希•剋萊佩將軍。他因此被授予瞭“優質服務勛章”（DSO）和大英帝國官佐勛章（OBE）。戰後，他與他未來的妻子瓊•濛賽爾周遊巴爾乾和希臘，並定居希臘開始寫作。2011年，弗莫爾與世長辭。

Continuing the epic foot journey across Europe begun in A Time of Gifts

The journey that Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on in 1933—to cross Europe on foot with an emergency allowance of one pound a day—proved so rich in experiences that when much later he sat down to describe them, they overflowed into more than one volume. Undertaken as the storms of war gathered, and providing a background for the events that were beginning to unfold in Central Europe, Leigh Fermor's still-unfinished account of his journey has established itself as a modern classic. Between the Woods and the Water , the second volume of a projected three, has garnered as many prizes as its celebrated predecessor, A Time of Gifts .

The opening of the book finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube—at the very moment where his first volume left off. A detour to the luminous splendors of Prague is followed bya trip downriver to Budapest, passage on horseback acrossthe Great Hungarian Plain, and a crossing of the Romanian border into Transylvania. Remote castles, mountain villages,monasteries and towering ranges that are the haunt of bears, wolves, eagles, gypsies, and a variety of sects are all savoredin the approach to the Iron Gates, the division between the Carpathian mountains and the Balkans, where, for now, the story ends.