Here’s a wonderful book for anyone who, like me, is fascinated by Venice’s rich literary history. I especially loved the walking tours outlined in the book – a wonderful way to explore the city.

From the blurb:

Venice has always attracted an extraordinary range of writers – pious and impious, earnest and frivolous, enthusiastic and hostile. And because so much of the city has remained unchanged, their words have a powerful hold on our imagination. To walk through Venice is to enter an extravagant theatre where we can chance upon the scene of a Renaissance murder as easily as that of an eighteenth-century seduction; where the next turning might lead us to the execution site of a dissolute friar or the canal-side home of a Victorian poet. All have their place in these pages, along with extracts from the writings of Byron, Casanova, Goethe, Ruskin, Henry James, Thomas Mann, D. H. Lawrence and many others.

Arranged in the form of a series of detailed walks through Venice, this Literary Companion provides a vivid guide to the streets, palaces, churches, canals and squares that make up this mysterious and endlessly beautiful city.