It is commonly supposed that Bruce Chatwin was an ingenuous latecomer to the profession of letters, a misapprehension given apparent credence by that now famous passage in his lyrical, autobiographical "I Always Wanted to Go to Patagonia," in which we are told that this indefatigable traveler's literary career began in midstride, almost on a whim, with a telegram announcing his departure for the farthest-flung corner of the globe: "Have gone to Patagonia.".

Such a view overlooks the fact that from the late 1960s onward Chatwin was already fashioning the tools of his future trade in the columns of a variety of magazines and journals. And that he continued to do so through every twist and turn of his career, from art expert to archaeologist, to journalist and author, right up until his death in 1989. These previously neglected or unpublished pieces - short stories, travel sketches, essays, articles, and criticism - gathered together here for the first time, cover every period and aspect of the writer's career, and reflect the abiding themes of his work: roots and rootlessness, exile and the exotic, possession and renunciation.