Voting Station

Jan Morris

Please vote to return to collections.

Author

The Resume

    (October 2, 1926-November 20, 2020)
    Born in Clevedon, England, United Kingdom
    Birth name was James Morris
    Underwent sex reassignment surgery (1972)
    Travel writer and historian
    Best known for the Pax Britannica trilogy (1968-78): 'Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress,' 'Pax Britannica: The Climax of Empire' and 'Farewell the Trumpets: An Imperial Retreat'
    Also wrote 'As I Saw the U.S.A.' (1956), 'Coronation Everest' (1958), 'Venice' (1960), 'Cities' (1963), 'The Presence of Spain' (1964), 'The Great Port: A Passage Through New York' (1969), 'Places' (1972), 'Travels' (1976), 'Destinations' (1980), 'The Matter of Wales' (1984), 'Hong Kong' (1988), 'Sydney' (1992), 'The World: Life and Travel 1950-2000' (2003), 'Contact! A Book of Glimpses' (2009) and 'Contact! A Book of Encounters' (2010)

Why she might be annoying:

    She confessed to a fondness for 'purple prose' in her writing.
    She complained about her transgendered status overshadowing her writing, saying 'I do not doubt that when I go, the event will be commemorated with the small back-page headline, 'Sex-Change Author Dies.''
    Sh expressed sympathy for incest and said (semi-jokingly) that she hoped her daughter would marry one of her sons since 'they were made for each other.'
    She said, 'The worst of American civilization, the worst thing, worse than the electric chair, is grape jelly.'

Why she might not be annoying:

    While still James, she covered Edmund Hillary's conquest of Everest: 'I went up an unkown and came down the most famous journalist in the world.'
    She was dubbed 'the Flaubert of the jet age' by Alistair Cooke and 'perhaps the best descriptive writer of our time' by Rebecca West.
    Although she and wife Elizabeth Tuckniss were required to divorce after the sex change, they stayed together and legally reunited after Britain introduced civil partnerships.
    She and Elizabeth said that after their deaths, they plan to be buried beneath the epitaph, 'Here are two friends, at the end of one life.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 12 Votes: 58.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 18 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 113 Votes: 44.25% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 84 Votes: 65.48% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 73 Votes: 52.05% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 22 Votes: 59.09% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 57 Votes: 59.65% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 222 Votes: 78.38% Annoying