Marius is an antiquarian bookseller in London who has travelled widely; while ostensibly a collection of essays and reflections on the art of poetry (and in some cases, music and the visual arts), these essays are also biographical, and include dozens of anecdotes about his encounters with poets, novelists, and artists

Includes stories of time spent as apprentice at distinguished UK antiquarian firm Bertram Rota, where he was bookseller to Javier Marías (who in turn caricatured Marius in an early short story, and later dubbed him "Skelton, Poet Laureate in the English Tongue," in Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear; essays include insight into the writing of All Souls and Dark Back of Time

anecdotes about encounters with W.S. Graham (a colleague of Dylan Thomas and a poet much-championed by Harold Pinter), Madge Herron (controversial itinerant poet in London, UK, ca the 1970s); poet and translator Christopher Middleton; on being neighbours with travel writer Bruce Chatwin

one essay explores the recovery of an early 19th-century manuscript expounding in detail a woman's experience of rape and the prosecution thereof

another recounts Marius's friendship with Zbigniew Herbert, one of the best known post-war Polish writers, and distant relation to 17th-century English poet George Herbert