Non-fiction, 2019 (written 1902-40)

Essays about Western European places visited and absorbed. These translations – and presumably the source text – wonderfully evoke and occasionally provide angry insight into elegaic Belgian ports or the souvenir trade around the First World War in Ypres. An air of sadness and detachment permeate, although the quality of the writing is joyous. A kind of post-war meditation, fusing travel writing with history and sociology, possibly anticipating the psychogeography of more latter years. This book brings a sense of restlessness, reflection and a dense, often unfulfilled, to connect and make sense of the people within them.