First edition of Jan Morris [then James] portrait of the Middle East at the brink of the Suez Crisis. Morris is one of the most celebrated travel writers of the 20th Century, weaving a poetic wit and style into her portraits of places and people. She often eschewed the title 'travel writer' as it implied to her she was simply moving through and recording places, not the deep personal connection she often formed with local people. Morris was also a trans pioneer, transitioning to female in the 1970s, one of the first high profile people to do so in the public eye. Her native British doctors refused to complete the surgery unless she divorced her wife, thus she travelled to Morroco for surgery under pioneering reassignment surgeon and gynecologist Georges Burou. Morris' illustrious journalism career included; breaking the news of the first ascent of Everest; "irrefutable proof" of Franco-Israeli collusion in the Suez Crisis, use of napalm, contributing to the resignation of Prime Minister Anthony Eden; and the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Her bibliography includes the celebrated histories Pax Britannica Triology, and her 1985 novel Last Letters from Hav, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize the same year.