"It will not be published until after I kick the bucket," Morris told Reuters in an interview in New York. "They took it sight unseen except they didn't like the title, and they still don't like the title. Tough."

The book of essays has two themes, "that nothing in life is simple or single; everything has more than one meaning, including life itself," and aging.

"I'm very interested in death, who isn't?" said Morris, who first published under the name James, switching to Jan after having a sex change in 1972.

"I have been personally concerned with my own death for ages. About 30 years ago I had our gravestone cut," she said. "It's under the stairs at home, it has been there ever since. It's got my own epitaph, which is 'Here are two friends -- Jan and Elizabeth (my partner) Morris, at the end of one life."

The couple had five children and have remained together since their 1949 marriage. It was their daughter who died after just two months in the 1960s who prompted the book.

"I have always been sorry I never got to know her," Morris said. "I always felt that I wished I had known her, so I thought I would write a series of letters to her."

But after writing some essays from that point of view, Morris said, "It got more and more pompous," prompting her to write a broader book for a wider audience.

And while she will reveal little about her final book, she insists it will not be morbid or maudlin. "It's not a pretentious book. I hope it's a merry book in fact."

The author of over three dozen books, Morris ranks highly among travel writers. Publishers Weekly called her "one of the most admired and imitated travel writers alive."

Her books include Manhattan '45, about New York in 1945, Venice, the Pax Britannica trilogy about the decline of the British Empire and Conundrum about her sex change.

Morris said she originally wanted to write fiction and became a journalist hoping it would help her on her way. Her big break was her 1953 scoop for The Times of London that Edmund Hillary had conquered Everest, spurring her to become a non-fiction travel book writer.

Asked what she is most proud of, she says unabashedly, "I am proud of my books."

"I gloat about them when I see them," she said. "When I see them in their different editions in the bookcase ... (I) think, 'Wow, you have really done something.'"

She says Trieste was her best: "I love the book. I shouldn't say that, should I? But I do. It is a beautiful book. Having written that book ... I thought, 'Well, you will never write such a good book as that again.'"

"So, I decided not to publish anymore," she said, conceding she misses seeing her books published.

She plans to open the final chapter of Allegorizings later this year, "But I hope it won't be published for some time."

Morris insists the book is not to settle any scores, prompting the question, why wait until she dies to publish?

"Critics? They won't mean anything," she said, adding, "And there are certain things that I would not feel happy talking about," and should only be published after her death.