Extract: The Burning Leg

An exploration of the whys and wherefores of walking in fiction

by Duncan MinshullThursday, 25 March 2010

Tess takes a hike: Gemma Arturton in the BBC adaptation of Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Walkers, like lovers of literature, are driven by the urge to explore, and writers have blessed their fictional characters with itchy feet since the earliest of narratives. Walks found in novels, short stories and even drama can have a multitude of meanings. The Burning Leg: Walking Scenes from Classic Fiction (Hesperus Press) collects extracts from Dickens and Dostoevsky, Proust and Poe, Kipling, Kafka and many more to show imaginations time and again set in motion by the simple act of walking. The following introduction is by the anthology's editor, Duncan Minshull

When Millamant says in The Way of the World, 'I nauseate walking,' she could be saying, ‘I nauseate walkers’ too

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