The Art of Wandering

The Art of Wandering is a history of that curious hybrid, the writer as walker. From the Ancient world to the modern day, the role of the walker continues to evolve, from philosopher and pilgrim, vagrant and visionary, to experimentalist and radical. From Rousseau and De Quincey to Virginia Woolf and Werner Herzog, this seemingly innocuous activity has inspired a literary tradition encompassing philosophy and poetry, the novel and the manifesto.

Today, this figure has returned to the forefront of the public imagination, as writers and walkers follow in the footsteps of earlier generations. For the walker is once again on the march, seeking out new territory and recording new impressions of the landscape.

Newly revised and updated, The Art of Wandering explores these adventures on foot. Every walk can be expressed as a story narrated by the walker; it is these stories and the lives of those who walked them which are examined here.



By Merlin Coverley



This is a real eye opener of a book and one I would recommend to anyone



Path to enlightenment: how walking inspires writers



A brisk history of why and in what ways writers have walked



Coverley's approach is an enlightening one. Covering an astounding amount of material, both well-known and cult writers feature with equal prominence; from Baudelaire, Blake, Whitman and Rimbaud, to the lesser-known Papadimitriou and Walser



Splendid, scholarly and suffused with evocative stories and biographical sketches, Coverley's book not only proffers pleasure and diversion but also potently explores the historical significance of the art of walking