Jan Morris – författare

With contributions by: William Boyd, Candice Carty-Williams, Imtiaz Dharker, Roddy Doyle, Pico Iyer, Robert Macfarlane, Andy Miller, Jackie Morris, Jan Morris, Sisonke Msimang, Dina Nayeri, Chigozie Obioma, Michael Ondaatje, David Pilling, Max Porter, Philip Pullman, Alice Pung, Jancis Robinson, S.F.Said, Madeleine Thien, Salley Vickers, John Wood and Markus Zusak'This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection.In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets.'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime.'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right.'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.'Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading.Inspired by Robert MacfarlaneCurated by Jennie Orchard

Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat traces the momentous decline and fall of the greatest of empires - from Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. With characteristic balance, this masterpiece of narrative history describes the long retreat and final dissolution of the British Empire. The Pax Britannica Trilogy includes Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress and Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire. Together these three works of history trace the dramatic rise and fall of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. Jan Morris is also world-renowned for her collection of travel writing and reportage, spanning over five decades and including such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, A Writer's World and most recently, Contact!'The British Empire is fortunate in having found in Morris a chronicler and memorialist who can do it justice. . . Morris writes with inspired gusto, firmly rooted in erudition, which carries the book into the realms of literature.' Sunday Telegraph'One of our finest writers on Empire - alive to its glory, yet with a beady eye for the corruptions and failures which were at its heart, along with the dreams.' Observer

Jan Morris tells the epic story of the rise of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. In this celebrated masterwork she vividly evokes every aspect of the 'great adventure', ranging from ships and botanical gardens to hill stations and sugar plantations, as she traces the impact of empire on places as diverse as Sierra Leone and Fiji, Zululand and the Canadian prairies. The Pax Britannica Trilogy also includes Pax Britannica: The Climax of an Empire and Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat. Together, these three works of history trace the dramatic rise and fall of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. Jan Morris is also world-renowned for her collection of travel writing and reportage, spanning over five decades and including such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, A Writer's World and most recently, Contact!'How many professional historians can write books that give so much pleasure? This is a book planned by an architect, fitted together by a craftsman, and polished by a cabinet-maker.' Sunday Times

The second instalment of the Pax Britannica Trilogy by Jan Morris, recreates the British Empire at its dazzling climax - the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897, celebrated as a festival of imperial strength, unity, and splendour. This classic work of history portrays a nation at the very height of its vigour and self-satisfaction, imposing on the rest of the world its traditions and tastes, its idealists and rascals. The Pax Britannica Trilogy also includes Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress and Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat. Together these three works of history trace the dramatic rise and fall of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. Jan Morris is world-renowned for her collection of travel writing and reportage, spanning over five decades and including such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, A Writer's World and most recently, Contact!'In scholarship and humour this portrait of the British Empire before its decline and fall might, without undue optimism, be placed upon the same shelf as Edward Gibbon's history. As a survey of its subject, I doubt that Pax Britannica can ever, in this generation be surpassed.' Financial Times

As one of Britain's best and most-loved travel writers, Jan Morris has led an extraordinary life. Perhaps her most remarkable work is this grippingly honest account of her ten-year transition from man to woman - its pains and joys, its frustrations and discoveries. On first publication in 1974, the book generated enormous interest around the world, and was chosen by The Times as one of the '100 Key Books of Our Time'.

For six centuries the Republic of Venice was a maritime empire, its sovereign power extending throughout much of the eastern Mediterranean – an empire of coasts, islands and isolated fortresses by which, as Wordsworth wrote, the mercantile Venetians 'held the gorgeous east in fee'. Jan Morris reconstructs the whole of this glittering dominion in the form of a sea-voyage, travelling along the historic Venetian trade routes from Venice itself to Greece, Crete and Cyprus. It is a traveller's book, geographically arranged but wandering at will from the past to the present, evoking not only contemporary landscapes and sensations but also the characters, the emotions and the tumultuous events of the past. The first such work ever written about the Venetian ‘Stato da Mar’, it is an invaluable historical companion for visitors to Venice itself and for travellers through the lands the Doges once ruled.

Jan Morris's magnificent book celebrates Wales and all things Welsh. Written as a deeply personal study, it reflects the rich bilingual literature and folklore of Wales, the buildings and wonderfully varied landscapes, the national character and humour, the historical predicaments and the political condition of this small but extraordinary country. Jan Morris is a distinguished historian as well as being one of the world's leading travel-writers. Her passionate love of Wales makes this a unique evocation.

'Few cities,' Jan Morris observes, 'have been much more loved, loathed, and celebrated.' This book has become a classic account of the character, history, mores, buildings, climate, and people of one of Britain's most fascinating cities. 'A book of outstanding excellence, with a sweep of knowledge and a distinction of style such as I have never before encountered in a work of this sort ... Brilliant alike in observation and imagination ... brings the very stones of Oxford to life'Sunday Telegraph.

In this entertaining and lively anthology, Jan Morris traces the history of the University from its foundation in the Middle Ages through to the twentieth century, combining extracts from contemporary observers with her own informative commentary. The reader is invited to view the development of the college system, the creation of the Bodleian, Magdalen's defiance of James II, Newman, and the Oxford Movement. The life and times of Oxford are exalted or derided by writers ranging from the antiquarian Anthony Wood to Evelyn Waugh, Dr Johnson and Mr Gladstone, Hilaire Belloc and Thomas Hardy. Unworldly scholars and eccentric dons walk the pages, accompanied by the great characters of Oxford such as Benjamin Jowett, Sir Maurice Bowra, and William Spooner.

No empire in history built so variously as the British empire in India: the buildings there attest to the richness of an imperial presence that lasted - from the first trading settlement to the end of the Raj - some three hundred years. The attitude of the British to India was compounded partly of arrogance, but partly also of homesickness, and it shows in their constructions. Georgian terraces were adapted to tropical conditions, Victorian railway stations were elaborately orientalized, seaside villas were adjusted to suit Himalayan conditions, and everywhere the fundamental ambivalence of the British empire, a baffling mixture of good and evil, was mirrored in the imperial architecture.This book, now reissued with a new introduction by Simon Winchester, was the first to describe the whole range of British constructions in India. The text and photographs illustrate these buildings not simply as physical objects, but as reflections of an empire's mingled emotions. Stones of Empire charts an enterprise in architecture, engineering, and social adaptation unique in human history.

Contains ten essays that brilliantly recapture the essence of places as diverse as Washington just after Watergate, Delhi under Mrs. Gandhi, Panama, Los Angeles, Southern Africa, London, Cairo at the time of the Israeli-Egyptian talks, Istanbul, Trieste, and Manhattan.

Hailed by Alistair Cooke as the 'Flaubert of the jet age', Jan Morris's ability to capture the surface and essence of a place has secured her reputation as a leading contemporary travel writer. In this collection of pieces on places as different as Las Vegas and Bombay, Athens and Shanghai, and Sydney and Aberdeen, she combines observation, history, and politics to produce the passionate and witty essays that prompted Rebecca West to call her 'the best descriptive writer of our times'.

With a fresh eye and inimitable style, the peerless travel and history writer Jan Morris journeys through the life of Abraham Lincoln to sketch an insightful new portrait of America's sixteenth president, one of our greatest and most enigmatic figures. Looking past his saintly image and log-cabin legend, Morris travels from Lincoln's birthplace to the White House to the infamous Ford theatre and conjures him in public and in private, as politician and as father, as commander-in-chief and as husband. With her skepticism and humour and marvellous sense of place, Morris seamlessly blends narrative, history, and biography to reveal the man behind the myth.

A homage to the city of Trieste, rich with history and tinged with the melancholy of remembrance. "Morris at the peak of her form." -The Atlantic Monthly

With her travel chronicles unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, Jan Morris’s legendary books on Venice, Manhattan, and Trieste have made her one of our most beloved writers. Now reflecting back on over half a century, Morris has decided to write not about the destinations but about the people she has encountered. Whether writing as James or later as Jan, Morris introduces us to a panoply of memorable characters—the Sherpa guide who first scaled Mt. Everest, the lascivious Manhattan cabbie, and the proverbial spy in the raincoat. She provides insightful portraits of the famous, such as Harry Truman and Jordan’s King Hussein, and glimpses of the infamous, including Adolf Eichmann. Recalling human encounters on six continents, she paints a vibrant, funny, and moving picture of humanity. Ultimately, no figure comes into clearer focus than Morris herself, an astonishing chronicler of the human spectacle. Contact! is one book you’ll want to carry with you wherever you go.

The first book to distill Jan Morris's entire body of work into one volume, The World is a magnum opus by the most-celebrated travel writer in the world. To read it is to take an epic armchair journey through the last half of twentieth-century history. A breathtakingly vivid guide to our greatest cosmopolitan cities and cultures from Manhattan to Venice and from Baghdad to Barbados, this book assembles fifty years of Morris's finest travel writing. With eyewitness accounts of such seminal moments as the first successful ascent of Everest, the Eichmann trial, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong, The World promises to create an entirely new generation of Jan Morris readers. A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2003.

Often hailed as one of the best travel books ever written, Venice is neither a guide nor a history book, but a beautifully written immersion in Venetian life and character, set against the background of the city's past. Analysing the particular temperament of Venetians, as well as its waterways, its architecture, its bridges, its tourists, its curiosities, its smells, sounds, lights and colours, there is scarcely a corner of Venice that Jan Morris has not investigated and brought vividly to life.Jan Morris first visited the city of Venice as young James Morris, during World War II. As she writes in the introduction, 'it is Venice seen through a particular pair of eyes at a particular moment - young eyes at that, responsive above all to the stimuli of youth.' Venice is an impassioned work on this magnificent but often maddening city. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Sydney, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain and Manhattan '45. Since its first publication, Venice has appeared in many editions, won the W.H. Heinemann award and become an international bestseller.'The best book about Venice ever written' Sunday Times'No sensible visitor should visit the place without it . . . Venice stands alone as the essential introduction, and as a work of literature in its own right.' Observer

Jan Morris (then James) first visited Trieste as a soldier at the end of the Second World War. Since then, the city has come to represent her own life, with all its hopes, disillusionments, loves and memories. Here, her thoughts on a host of subjects - ships, cities, cats, sex, nationalism, Jewishness, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of this book.Evoking the whole of its modern history, from its explosive growth to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through the years of Fascist rule to the miserable years of the Cold War, when rivalries among the great powers prevented its creation as a free city under United Nations auspices, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book; like the place, it is one of a kind. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

In a wonderfully evocative collection of her travel writing and reportage from over five decades, Jan Morris - a constant traveller - has produced a unique portrait of the twentieth century. Ranging from New York to Venice, Sydney to Berlin, and the Middle East to South Africa, Jan Morris was a witness to such seminal moments as the Eichmann trial, the first ascent of Everest, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the handover of Hong Kong.Offering a tremendously perceptive and highly personal view of the world, she is as much concerned with conveying the 'feel' of these moments as the events themselves. And, as ever, she displays her unique and inimitable literary style, at once funny, wise and sad. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.'A glorious compendium of adventure and wisdom' Pico Iyer

'Exquisite, powerful . . . I can think of no better way of commemorating British exploration's culminating triumph.' Simon Winchester?Coronation Everest offers a breathtakingly intimate evocation of the most famous of all mountaineering exploits - and of perhaps the last great old-fashioned Fleet Street scoop.'It was Morris who broke the news that a British-led expedition had conquered Mount Everest the day before the Queen's coronation in 1953 . . . Allied to physical courage in getting down the mountain and a dogged resourcefulness in getting the news home, Morris scooped the world and was launched on one of the most remarkable literary careers in the second half of the twentieth century.' Guardian Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Coronation Everest, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Hav gives us Jan Morris at her most delightful and most suggestive. The city is a magical place - yet behind its arcane splendours are darker implications. The traditional Roof Race is peculiarly exciting, the waterfront is picturesque, the wistful call of a trumpeter from a distant rampart is wonderfully evocative, and every street corner is haunted by memories of illustrious visitors - Freud, Diaghilev, Marco Polo, Lawrence of Arabia and countless others. But Morris's visit ends in flight when an unidentified enemy arrives to seize control.When Jan Morris returns to Hav, some twenty years later, she finds that her account of her earlier visit is banned - and discovers a place that has rebuilt itself, transformed by a new energy and now dominated by a totemic tower 2000 feet tall. But as the old Hav was in many ways an allegory of the last century, so the city in its new incarnation offers no less elusive hints, echoes and portents of our 21st century world. As a destination it remains as entertaining as ever.

Admiral of the Fleet Lord 'Jacky' Fisher (1841-1920) was one of the greatest naval reformers in history. He was also a colossal figure to contemporaries, both loved and loathed, a man of exceptional charm, presence and charisma. Since the late 1940s, Jan Morris has been haunted by his face - with its startling combination of 'the suave, the sneering and the self-amused.' This evocation is both biography and a love letter, a perfect expression of her passionate interest in mavericks and outsiders, in travel, ships and the glorious pageantry of the British Empire in its prime.