"What appeals to me about Morton's work is that you are reading two histories at once. As he recounts stories of the and eras, he is also giving a contemporary account of a world that has entirely vanished. He writes with a crisp matter-of-factness about his faith and his place as an Englishman abroad in the 1930s. I don't mean in a colonially superior way, but just with a certainty that I think few could express today. In the book he is mostly exploring the youthful nation state of 's . For Morton, visiting what remains of the places where stayed is often a case of begging a ride from a local. It is still an age when traveling in the near East is more an expedition than a holiday. When Morton visits the site of the for example, it is a waterlogged ruin, where he imagines the frogs to be croaking out her name. A plate image in the book shows a desolate empty location, and he laments the mutilated statues on the road from the village of ."
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Essayists from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandJournalists from EnglandColumnists from EnglandFellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Original Language: English
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Martin Belam,
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._V._Morton
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H. V. Morton
(published as H. V. Morton; 26 July 1892 – 18 June 1979) was a British journalist and famous . He first achieved fame in 1923 as an employee of the ' when he reported on Howard Carter's of the .
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