The New York Times –bestselling author's four-part story of passion and betrayal—voted one of the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the twentieth century.The Alexandria Quartet is a striking and sensuous masterpiece, breathing vivid life into each of its unforgettable characters and the dusty Mediterranean city in which they live. Set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the years before, during, and after World War II, the books f...

Six centuries ago, the Islamic world was the pinnacle of civilization. What was it really like? The answer is in the twelfth-century diaries of Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan traveler who spent thirty years journeying some 73,000 miles. Here, in this short-form book from acclaimed writer and bestselling author Jan Morris, in the little-known story of perhaps the greatest traveler of all time.

The New York Times –bestselling author's "very remarkable" first Alexandria novel tells a haunting story of love, desire, and deception in pre-WWII Egypt ( New York Herald Tribune Book Review ).Set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the years between World Wars I and II, Justine is the first installment in the distinguished Alexandria Quartet. Here Lawrence Durrell crafts an exqui...

This autobiographical coming of age classic offers a "visceral, comic and tragic" portrait of rural life in Wales during the Great War ( The Guardian, UK).Named the greatest Welsh novel by the Wales Arts Review, this beautifully rendered novel tells of a boy's hardscrabble life in rural Wales and his challenging—yet at times transcendent—journey into adulthood. In the 1910s, the village of Bethesda is a place of poverty and religion; illn...

In 1955 the winds of change were beginning to blow across the Sultanate of Oman, a hitherto truly medieval state. Rumours of subversion mingled with the unsettling smell of oil to propel the Sultan on a royal progress across the desert hinterland, from his southern capital of Salala to the northern capital of Muscat. It was an historic journey – the first crossing of the Omani desert by motorcar. Jan Morris accompanied His Highness Sultan Said bin Taimur as a professional observer, and was...

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisherHumorous tales of travel and misadventure.Lonely Planet knows that some of life's funniest experiences happen on the road. Whether they take the form of unexpected detours, unintended adventures, unidentifiable dinners or unforgettable encounters, they can give birth to our most found travel lessons, and our most memorable - and hilarious - travel stories.These 31 globegirdling tales that run the gamu...

A young Englishman recounts the first leg of his legendary 1934 walk from London to Constantinople in this memoir by “one of the greatest travel writers of all time” (Sunday Times).At the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set off from the heart of London on an epic journey—to walk to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the...

The second Alexandria Quartet novel, which boldly questions perception and the nature of contemporary love, from the New York Times –bestselling author.In Alexandria, Egypt, in the years before World War II, Durrell's narrator, Darley, seeks to fully understand his sexual obsession with two women: the infamous Justine, and Melissa, a dancer. In Darley's conversations with Balthazar, a doctor and mystic, it soon becomes cl...

From the New York Times –bestselling author, the final installment of the Alexandria Quartet, hailed as "one of the most important works of our time" ( The New York Times Book Review ).Years after his liaisons with Justine and Melissa, Darley becomes immersed in a relationship with Clea, a bisexual artist. The ensuing chain of events transforms not only the love...

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 trave...

Through an exploration of her country home in Wales, acclaimed travel writer Jan Morris discovers the heart of her fascinating country and what it means to be Welsh. Trefan Morys, Morris's home between the sea and mountains of the remote northwest corner of Wales, is the 18th-century stable block of her former family house nearby. Surrounding it are the fields and outbuildings, the mud, sheep, and cattle of a working Welsh farm. She regards this modest building not only as a reflection of ...

In this third novel, the New York Times –bestselling author's Alexandria "is now as real as Hawthorne's Rome, Proust's Paris, Loti's Constantinople" ( The Saturday Review ).David Mountolive is a British diplomat who views love as just another everyday transaction. But as romance turns to betrayal and secret alliances are exposed, Mountolive's affair will bring the true complexity...