Coast to Coast

Following the recent publication of Jan Morris’s final book, here is her very first. Fresh from her success reporting on the first Everest ascent in 1953, she spent a year journeying by car, train, ship, and aircraft across the United States. “I did not know it then, and nor did America, but chance had brought me across the Atlantic at the very apex of American happiness,” writes Morris in her new introduction. The author was then James Morris, and America’s identity was different then, too. In brilliant prose, Morris records with exuberance and wonder a time of innocence in America. “The prose sparkles, and everything [Morris] tells glitters.” — San Francisco Chronicle