A visit to New York in 1953 was to prove his last, though the legend that he drank 18 straight whiskeys on his last night is more myth than reality.

It seems as though what really finished him off was pneumonia, which he probably had before he set off for the States and which was misdiagnosed because of his drinking habits.

Therefore, when he became seriously ill, he was treated as if it was an alcoholic reaction and he was given half a grain of morphine.

That sent him into a coma.from which he never recovered.

So, how do they stand up as literature?

It's an exuberant, rich style.

It's very vivid and immediate.

It puts you in the centre of the consciousness of the narrator and literally, in some cases, in the bodily self because being about childhood for half the stories, it's about those senses which are most immediate, senses of taste, touch, smell and so on.