Watch: Faber Books celebrate pioneering writer, Jan Morris

Stephen Price

This month, Faber’s author in focus is Jan Morris – with the publishers providing a glimpse into the celebrated works and pioneering life of one of the world’s best and most loved travel writers, along with a must-watch interview.

Jan Morris was born in 1926 to a Welsh father and an English mother. She spent the last years of her life with her partner Elizabeth Morris in the top left-hand corner of Wales, between the mountains and the sea.

Her books include Coronation Everest, Venice, the Pax Britannica trilogy and Conundrum. She was also the author of six books about cities and countries, two autobiographical books, several volumes of collected travel essays and the unclassifiable Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.

Recognition

Morris was recognised in 2018 for her outstanding contribution to travel writing by the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

In the same year, In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary was published. It was followed by a second volume of diaries, Thinking Again, in 2020, and then her posthumously published final book, Allegorizings, in 2021.

In an extraordinary interview with New York Times journalist Don George she discusses her incredible career, which has led from covering the first ascent of Mount Everest to writing the ultimate book on Venice, as well as dissecting the British empire in her trilogy Pax Britannica.

Here she takes us from her days as journalist for The Times to the writing of all of those classic books, and the secrets behind her writing, such as her habit of writing each book in full three time, and her feelings of homesickness when out travelling the globe.

Jan’s son, Mark, wrote to Faber recently on receiving his copy of their new facsimile hardback edition of Conundrum.

Having designed the original 1974 jacket, he noted that ‘it is nice to have a copy of the book with my cover on it (I don’t have an original!)’.

He went on to say that ‘It would have been Jan’s birthday today. I know she would have been very pleased at the reproduction, and one of the copies you sent me is going into the library at her house in North Wales, to join the collection.’

Thrill

The publishers shared: “This reminded me of an entry from In My Mind’s Eye, Jan’s first book of diaries: ‘One morning in 1956, when my family and I lived on our houseboat Saphir, on the Nile, in Cairo, the mail turned up as we were having breakfast on the deck with a visiting guest.

“It included a package from London, and when I opened it, with rising excitement, I found it to contain the very, very first copy of my very, very first book, Coast to Coast (Faber and Faber, 271pp, 21s.). Our guest watched my pleasure as I unwrapped it, and then laughingly said, ‘‘As long as you live, you’ll never have another moment quite like this!’’.

“With its lovely details (the date and location!) this would be a great story on its own, but it is made even better by Jan’s subsequent line – typically, somehow, both blunt and elegant — ‘Well, she was wrong’, as she notes how that that thrill never diminished.

In Focus

Faber’s former archivist Robert Brown, shares some of the fascinating background to Jan Morris’s self-styled work of ‘historical romanticism’, Coronation Everest.

The book, wrote Morris, depicted ‘the almost simultaneous occurrence of two events — a young queen’s coronation, the first ascent of a mountain — which profoundly stirred the British nation fifty years ago.’

Read the article in full here.

As one of Britain’s best and most loved travel writers, Jan Morris led an extraordinary life.

Perhaps Jan most remarkable work, however, is her grippingly honest account of her ten-year transition — its pains and joys, its frustrations and discoveries.

Morris’ account of her transition is considered one of the most important books on the subject ever written.

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’.

Faber’s new heritage edition has been exclusively designed and crafted for Faber Members, with reproduced cover artwork based on the 1974 first edition by Jan’s son, Mark Morris.

It is printed on premium paper and the adapted dust jacket encloses a beautifully bound hardback with a fawn cover and gold-foiled spine, in a close replication of the original first edition.

Find out more about this and other books by Jan Morris here.

Read Faber’s tips on where to start reading the travel writing of Jan Morris here.

Read The Paris Review, Remembering Jan Morris here.