The pen of W. H. Davies, super-tramp and writer, reveals a fascinating picture of a vast, bustling continent intent on its own affairs and of a Britain on the cusp of change between old certainties and an uneasy future.

At the age of fifty, towards the end of the First World War, W. H. Davies decided that he must marry. Spurning London society and the literary circles where he had been lionised since the publication of his "Autobiography of a Super-Tramp," he set about looking for the right partner on the streets of London." Young Emma" is a moving and revealing memoir told with disarming honesty and humour. Davies records his life with three women: from his affair with Bella, the wife of a Sergeant Major, to his year-long liaison with the gentle Louise, to the turbulent brushes with a society woman who...