Venice for Lovers

By Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein

Muhlstein and Begley’s Venice is a very private view of a place which will forever inspire dreams of love and passion. Every year for the 30 years of their marriage, Louis Begley and Anka Muhlstein have spent long, enjoyable months in Venice. La Serenissima has become their second home. The owners of their favourite restaurants are now firm friends and they share the lives of the locals, far off the beaten tourist tracks, which Anka Muhlstein describes charmingly in her contribution to the book. Louis Begley tells the story of how he fell in love with and in Venice. He is not the only one who did, as his brilliant literary essay on the city’s place in world literature demonstrates: Henry James, Marcel Proust and Thomas Mann are among his illustrious predecessors.


“The experience of Venice is an intensely personal one, if only becausela Serenissima is so mysterious and wins one over so completely. Thatis what we have tried to convey in our very different ways. We have also hoped to infect our readers with our own love for Venice, which runs very deep and has brought us great happiness.”

Anka Muhlstein & Louis Begley


New in paperback, this book has also been published as a hardback version.


Louis Begley was born in Poland in 1933 and moved to New York to practise law in 1959. He is famous for his novel Wartime Lies. His wife Anka Muhlstein is a historian and author and has written several books, including Reine éphémères. Mères perpétuelles (Temporary Queens - Eternal Mothers), published by Albin Michel in 2001. She has written several biographies, including a comparative one on Elizbeth I and Mary Stuart. She was honoured by the French Academy for her work on Cavelier de La Salle.