Italian Hours is a book of travel writing by Henry James published in 1909. The book collected essays that James had written over nearly forty years about a country he knew and loved well.

James extensively revised and sometimes expanded the essays to create a more consistent whole. He also added two new essays and an introduction.

Italian Hours ends with the phrase, "the luxury of loving Italy, " and everything in the book indicates that James enjoyed this luxury to the fullest. But he was by no means a blind lover.

His opening essay on Venice, for instance, doesn't gloss over the sad conditions of life for the city's people: "Their habitations are decayed, their taxes heavy, their pockets light, their opportunities few.