Fodor’s Greece 1972 — Vintage Hardcover Travel Guide

🗺 The 1972 illustrated edition of Fodor’s Greece — the revised annual edition of Eugene Fodor’s classic guide, published by David McKay Company when Fodor’s was rewriting the travel-guide format: practical logistics written with wit, backed by a fold-out atlas, archaeological site maps, street plans, and lively drawings by Minos Argyrakis. This copy keeps its original unclipped dust jacket and its firm sky-blue cloth binding with gilt spine titles.

Quick Facts

• Title (from title page): fodor’s GREECE 1972 — “Illustrated edition with atlas and city plans”
• Editors: Eugene Fodor and William Curtis; associate editors Robert C. Fisher and Betty Glauert; area editor Peter Sheldon
• Publisher: David McKay Company, Inc., 1972
• Pages: 343 (per bibliographic record)
• Format: Hardcover with original dust jacket, unclipped at $7.95
• Illustrations: Drawings by Minos Argyrakis, black-and-white photographs of sites, fold-out regional map, city and site plans

What’s Inside

This edition covers the Greek mainland and islands in the classic 1970s Fodor’s mold — city-by-city guidance, hotel and restaurant listings of the period, ferry and transport logistics, and the humor that distinguished Fodor’s from its dry competitors. Visual material includes:

• A fold-out map of the Aegean, showing the Turkish coast, Lesvos, Chios, and the island chains
• City and site plans, including a detailed Acropolis plan with numbered monuments (Temple of Athena, Theatre of Dionysus) and scale
• Black-and-white photographs of major monuments — the Theseion at Athens, the Tholos at Delphi — paired with wry captions
• Spot drawings by Minos Argyrakis throughout, from street scenes to cartoons (one interior page pairs a Nauplius-region travel text with a line drawing of a village garage sign)

The pale-yellow endpapers carry the circular Fodor’s “F” logo; this copy bears a brief owner’s inscription on the endpaper (see condition report).

About Fodor’s

Eugene Fodor (1905-1991), a Hungarian-American writer, published his first guide in 1936 and founded Fodor’s Modern Guides in Paris in 1949. David McKay Company became the publisher in 1950, and the annual revised editions of the 1960s and 1970s — like this Greece 1972 — built the brand’s reputation for firsthand reporting and practical advice. McKay was acquired by Random House in 1986; vintage hardbound Fodor’s editions from the McKay years are now collectible in their own right as documents of mid-century travel culture.

Book Details

Author: Eugene Fodor and William Curtis (Editors); Peter Sheldon (Area Editor)

Illustrator: Minos Argyrakis

Publisher: David McKay Company, Inc.

Binding: Hardcover

Edition Points: 1972 revised annual edition with unclipped original dust jacket showing $7.95 retail price.

Condition Report

Overall Grade: Book: Very Good (VG) // Jacket: Acceptable (A)/Good (G)

Cover & Spine: Sky blue cloth boards with vibrant gilt spine and front cover titles; cloth at edges all around is sunned. Board corners are crisp.

Dust Jacket: Unclipped ($7.95); shows pronounced chipping, edge creasing, and open tears across the top edge and spine head, with paper loss to rear upper panel.

Text Block & Pages: Lightly age-toned pages and clean interior; brief annotations noted in front and back endpapers, no writing internally. No loose, torn or folded pages.

Binding: Hardcover binding is firm, square, and structurally sound with solid hinges front and back.

FAQ

Is this a first edition? It is the 1972 revised annual edition, the standard yearly update Fodor’s published through its David McKay years. The title page designates it the “illustrated edition with atlas and city plans.”

Does it include maps? Yes — a fold-out regional map of the Aegean, plus archaeological site maps and city plans printed throughout, including a numbered plan of the Acropolis.

Is the dust jacket original and intact? The jacket is original and unclipped ($7.95). It shows pronounced chipping, edge creasing, and open tears along the top edge and spine head with paper loss to the rear upper panel — full details in the condition report above.

See accompanying images for full condition details. Will ship promptly, carefully packaged.

HFB-SEO-v1: 2026-10-13

Shelf: 3-2

1 in stock