
A Length of Road
Finding Myself in the Footsteps of John Clare: A John Murray Original
Robert Hamberger(Author)
JM Originals (Publisher)
Published on 24. June 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-1-4736-9793-5 (ISBN)
Description
In 1841 the 'peasant poet' John Clare escaped from an asylum in Epping Forest, where he had been kept for four years, and walked over eighty miles home to Northamptonshire. Suffering from poor mental health, Clare was attempting to return to his idealized first love, Mary, unaware that she had died three years earlier.
In 1995, with his life in crisis and his own mental health fragile, Robert decides to retrace Clare's route along the Great North Road over a punishing four-day walk. As he walks he reflects on the changing landscape and on the evolving shape of his own family, on fatherhood and masculinity, and on the meaning of home.
Part memoir, part travel-writing, part literary criticism, A Length of Road is a deeply profound and poetic exploration of class, gender, grief and sexuality through the author's own experiences and through the autobiographical writing of poet John Clare.
In 1995, with his life in crisis and his own mental health fragile, Robert decides to retrace Clare's route along the Great North Road over a punishing four-day walk. As he walks he reflects on the changing landscape and on the evolving shape of his own family, on fatherhood and masculinity, and on the meaning of home.
Part memoir, part travel-writing, part literary criticism, A Length of Road is a deeply profound and poetic exploration of class, gender, grief and sexuality through the author's own experiences and through the autobiographical writing of poet John Clare.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 135 mm
Width: 212 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
346 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4736-9793-5 (9781473697935)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Robert Hamberger
A Length of Road
Finding Myself in the Footsteps of John Clare: A John Murray Original
E-Book
06/2021
1st Edition
JM Originals
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Robert Hamberger is a published poet of six pamphlets and three collections, who works have been broadcast on Radio 4 and published in the Observer, New Statesman, The Spectator, Poetry Review and Gay Times. This is his first non-fiction book.