Jan Morris is a historian and travel writer, described as ‘the Flaubert of the jet age’. Born James Morris, she underwent sex change surgery in 1972. Her frank and moving account of discovering and pursuing her true identity as a woman, Conundrum (1972), is perhaps the most influential book of its kind. As a journalist, Morris was the first to report the conquest of Mount Everest in 1953. Her atmospheric portraits of cities, including Venice, Oxford and New York, are widely celebrated, as is her monumental three volume history of the British Empire, Pax Britannica.