Jan Morris (1926 - 2020) served as an intelligence officer with the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, studied at Oxford University, and was a reporter for the Times and the Guardian before launching into a successful career as a novelist, history author, and travel writer. Her books include Last Letters from Hav, Fifty Years of Europe, Conundrum, Hong Kong, Oxford, The World of Venice, and Farewell the Trumpets.

The opening volume of Morris's ?Pax Britannica Trilogy,? this richly detailed work traces the rise of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837 to the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book