In the late 1940s Patrick Leigh Fermor, now widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest travel writers, set out to explore the Caribbean islands. Rather than a comprehensive political or historical study of the region, The Traveller's Tree, Leigh Fermor's first book, gives us his own vivid, idiosyncratic impressions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Barbados, Trinidad, and Haiti, among other islands, all set forth in prose of astonishing lyricism, wit, and descriptive power.
This picaresque adventure takes Leigh Fermor through a series of landscapes at once treacherous and sublime where he encounters an incredible host of characters and indeed whole societies.