Venetian Life
1866
In 1861, a twenty-three-year-old American named William Dean Howells arrived in Venice as the newly appointed consul, a political reward for penning Abraham Lincoln's campaign biography. He had almost nothing to do. The salary troubled him. So instead of performing any official duties, he did what any curious American with time on his hands would do: he watched. He dined with countesses and fishermen. He wandered the calle and campi. He observed the Austrian soldiers occupying the city, the poverty lurking behind palatial facades, the gondoliers tired of their own romance. The result is not the Venice of gilded tourism or easy nostalgia, but something sharper and stranger: a city rendered by an outsider who loved it enough to see clearly. Howells captures the magical improbability of a city built on water, its decaying grandeur and political unrest, its citizens performing their lives on a stage they did not choose. Written with wit that feels distinctly modern and a sensitivity that feels timeless, Venetian Life endures because it offers what most travel writing about Venice does not: the permission to see the city as it actually is, rather than as we wish it to be.
Editions
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read Venetian Life by William Dean Howells free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read Venetian Life by William Dean Howells free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Howells, William Dean. Venetian Life. Lex, lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3.Howells, W. D. (1866). Venetian Life. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3Howells, William Dean. Venetian Life. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/venetian-life-906aba1b-b23f-450b-be79-34be5ffb79a3.
