Spain

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Spain is one of the absolutes. Nothing is more compelling than the drama, at once dark and dazzling, of that theatre over the hills – the vast splendour of the Spanish landscape, the intensity of Spain’s pride and misery, the adventurous glory of a history that set its seal upon half the world . . .

Passionate, evocative and beautifully written, Spain is a companion to the country: its people, its history and its character. First published in 1964 and no less compelling today, this classic work by Jan Morris is a wonderful sweep through history, in which she brings Spain vividly to life. She explores the social and political changes that have occurred, the subtle and the radical, recording the splendour of the landscape and the glory and the tragedy of the nation.

Jan Morris’s collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Oxford, Sydney, Hong Kong and the Pax Britannica trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

‘The most evocative book ever written about Spain.’ Independent

‘Her writing radiates the qualities of an ideal companion: knowledgeable, witty, relaxed, and always up for an adventure. If you pricked a globe with pins indicating the places she explored throughout her work – Venice, Hong Kong, wide swaths of South Africa and Spain, and, of course, Wales, where she lived for much of her life with her wife, Elizabeth – it would never stop spinning.’ Paris Review

‘Spain is one of the most vivid evocations of cities I’ve ever read.’ Guardian

‘The most evocative book ever written about Spain.’ Independent

Morris, Jan

A Leap into the Light

Derek Johns on Jan Morris, Conundrum

I first met Jan Morris in the offices of the publisher Random House in New York in the early 1980s. I was a junior editor there, and was invited to meet someone I considered to be one of the most...

Conundrum | Chapter 7: Rescued – a grand love . . .

Jan Morris, Conundrum

Love rescued me from that remote and eerie capsule, as it rescued me from self-destruction, and everything they say about love, in dicta sublime as in lyric abysmal, is demonstrably true. I have...

Melancholy but Marvellous

Ariane Bankes on Jan Morris, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere

The capital of nowhere – could anywhere be more tantalizing? For those of us increasingly blasé or wary about visiting ‘somewheres’ the world over, many of them the target of hordes of other...

Dominion over Palm and Pine

David Gilmour on Jan Morris, the Pax Britannica trilogy

When people ask me what they should read about the Empire, I suggest they go to the five volumes of the Oxford History of the British Empire, where they will find a mass of recent research...