"I hasten to protest at the outset that I have no personal knowledge of the incorrigible super-tramp who wrote this amazing book," is how George Bernard Shaw opens his preface. He was introduced to Davies's writing when he received a volume of poems through the post and was later instrumental in bringing his work to the attention of critics and publishers. At the time he wasn't aware that Davies was a tramp living in a London dosshouse. The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp chronicles the years between 1893 and 1899 when Davies left his home-town, Newport, and spent time drifting, begging and taking on seasonal work in America and Canada.