The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp

By: W. H. Davies

Narrated by: Matthew Coles

"The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp" was published in 1908 by the Welsh author W. H. Davies (1871-1940). Most of the narrative describes the way of life of the tramp in Britain and North America in the last decade of the 19th century. At the age of 22, Davies sailed to America, which was the first of more than a dozen Atlantic crossings. From 1893 to 1899 the author traveled the highways and railways, living day to day by riding trains, staying in prisons, and even managing to fund himself to repeatedly cross the ocean. The book was praised across the literary spectrum, from Bernard Shaw to Ezra Pound.

Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks

eh

A pretty dull book in comparison to other road novels. One passage proves the author to be emphatically racist against black folks, and he never strays far from an antisemitic aside. This memoir might be interesting to a historian, but probably not to a casual reader.