Reviews
The present terms of the lockdown make it tough times for any kind of tramp, defined by the sociologist Ben Reitman a century ago as "a man who doesn't work, who apparently doesn't want to work, who lives without working and who is constantly traveling". Reitman, best known as the companion of the anarchist Emma Goldman, was himself a former hobo, a category he separated from tramping: "A hobo is a non-skilled, non-employed labourer without money, looking for work". Both are removed from the bum, who "begs or earns a few pennies a day. He is usually inebriate". These distinctions are quoted in Ian Cutler's enjoyable new book, The Lives and Extraordinary Adventures of Fifteen Tramp Writers. His subjects include some who will be known to readers - Morley Roberts, Jack London, W. H. Davies, Jack Black - and others whose stories are less familiar, including the only female tramp in the cast, the long-lived Kathleen Phelan (1917-2014). According to Mr Cutler, she "out-tramped all of the male vagabonds" in the book, having spent "77 of her 97 years living on the road. -- (London) Times Literary Supplement
