This book concerns why the writers featured sought to exile themselves from mainstream society, not least by embracing the 'natural' world and an ascetic lifestyle. With the help of generous references from the 30-plus vagabond writers featured (plus many more contributions from secondary texts), Cutler has identified what he regards as the key features of the temperament and philosophy of those who rejected mannered, conventional society for a vagabond life.
Each chapter addresses a different aspect of vagabondage under such themes as: wanderlust; the compulsion not to live a settled existence; asceticism; affinity with nature; the desire to retain the innocence (and mischief) of childhood; aloofness yet compassion for the rest of human-kind; and the rejection of formal education for knowledge experienced via their own senses.
Refusing to be compromised by the grand narratives of religion, politics, law, nationalism, and convention, they regarded themselves as 'citizens of the universe' rather than slaves of what they regarded as geographical and political states artificially created by humans.
Cutler attempts to rescue from obscurity, the philosophy first espoused by the ancient Cynics and now practiced-outside of any organized movement-by this disparate group of thinkers and writers, by presenting arguments and conclusions that are original to this work.
Born in 1948 to a British army officer (who later returned to farming) and a Jewish mother who had arrived in the UK on the Kindertransport-her parents murdered in the camps-Ian Cutler left school aged 15 with no qualifications and no regrets, wanting to see the world that he suspected offered much more than he had seen so far. After attending agricultural college and working in Africa, Central America and the Middle East, Ian Cutler settled into a career in both the NHS and Social Care in the UK, retiring as a Local Government Director of Adult Social Services in 2011. After publishing his first journal article in 2000 prompted by his growing interest in Classical Cynicism, Cutler continued to write and to publish biographical and philosophical texts. His first book was published in 2005. Since 1985, Cutler has lived in Cardiff, Wales, UK, with his wife Angela.
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