Noel James, a man of 'queer notions and good-natured vagaries' who leaves his well-off upbringing and marriage for a life of tramping, 'vagabondage' in the novel, for 'casual wards', 'dosshouses' and the 'dignity of begging'. The author's first novel, published five years after the end of World War One for a country in the grip of PTSD.
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