Venice (Morris book)

Venice (1960) is a celebrated book by the Welsh author Jan Morris (1926-2020) on the history, culture and meaning of Venice, Italy. It won the 1961 Heinemann Award, became an international best-seller and was cited as one of The Guardian ’s top 100 non-fiction books in 2011 (the endorsement read: "An eccentric but learned guide to the great city's art, history, culture and people" ^[1][2]).

Often hailed as one of the best travel books ever written, The Times described it as “a classic love letter to Italy’s most iconic city”. Originally published by Faber and Faber as by James Morris, she transitioned in 1972^[3] and subsequently revised the book as Jan Morris four times. She described it in the original introduction as “not a history book, but it necessarily contains many passages of history. These I have used magpie-style, embedding them in the text where they seem to me to glitter most effectively…. It is not a guide book, either: but … I have listed the Venetian sights that seem to me most worth seeing… nor is it exactly a report”. Rather, it is "a highly subjective, romantic, impressionistic picture less of a city than of an experience."