It is not easy to assess a book such as this, appearing as it does through the mist of grief and reverence surrounding the sudden and far too early death of a great writer. It is a collection of pieces left by W G Sebald, none of them previously published in book form, and it is so moving to hear his voice again that at first it hardly matters what it is saying.

The most important thing about Campo Santo is that it includes all that exists of a project Sebald put aside, which began with an account of a visit he made to Corsica. Remembering what he made in The Rings of Saturn of a walk in East Anglia, one knows that