Author and traveler, with an extraordinary power of observation, James Morris covered the first ascent of Mount Everest for the TIMES of London in 1953, and received the Heinemann Award for Literature for his elegant book THE WORLD OF VENICE. On his return from far places, he settles down to write in a ramshackle Georgian mansion beside a salmon river in North Wales. His new book, OXFORD, will be published later this year by Harcourt, Brace & World.