Aged fifty, acclaimed by the literary intelligentsia and exalted by London society since the publication of The Autobiography of the Super-Tramp in 1908, W. H. Davies finally decided to marry. Casting aside the praise and trinkets which populated his old life, he took to the streets of London to find a bride towards the end of World War One.

 

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 drunkard who fears her own murder at his hands, Davies lurches from happiness and affection to annoyance and apathy. That is, until he meets Emma.

 

A moving and revealing memoir of real life at the turn of the century,Young Emma is W. H. Davies’ frank and honest account of the relationship with the woman he encountered on a London street corner who was to become his wife.

 

Featuring a foreword by C. V. Wedgewood and an appendix by George Bernard Shaw.

 

“An extraordinary memoir destined to become a classic” Publishers Weekly

 

“Young Emma is a masterpiece, and stranger than any fiction” Sunday Telegraph

 

“Classic... remarkable... an extraordinary manuscript” The Observer