Several millennia ago two people – possibly an adult and a child – walked in soft, muddy ground in the Olduvai Gorge in present day Kenya, leaving their footprints for archaeologists to discover. And, still walking, the descendants of people like these two went on to walk right across our world. Walking is as natural to us as breathing and almost every author who has ever written has had something to say on the subject.

In this fascinating anthology, Deborah Manley has drawn on writings of more than 50 literary figures from around the world – WH Auden, Agatha Christie, Captain James Cook, William Dalrymple, Daniel Defoe, EM Forster, Amitav Ghosh, Graham Greene, Rudyard Kipling, Donna Leone, JB Priestley, Bayard Taylor, Paul Theroux, Henry David Thoreau, Colin Thubron and Mark Twain among many others.

This is a book for walkers and armchair travellers alike.