BRUCE Chatwin, who died in January 1989, was as renowned for his charm and good he was for the authority of his prose. Social skills and an attractive appearance ought scarcely to matter in a writer but, they both helped greatly to define Chatwin's standing among his peers.

As Susannah Clapp remarks in her opening chapter, had he been "portly, myopic and mouse haired, his quite different".

Outside observers of England's tightly knit and absurdly self regarding literary circle - annually embodied by the Booker Prize and its predictable attendant squabbles - can only wonder at the myth of Chatwin, indisputably a competent and always engaging author but not necessarily one who merits the attentions of a biographer just eight years after his death.

Susannah Clapp was the editor of Bruce Chatwin's first book, In Patagonia, and she subsequently became one of his many friends. She has not produced a hagiography Chatwin's failings - personal and literary - are given almost as much attention, as his virtues and she is quite willing to quote those who did not immediately succumb to his allure.

Angela Carter, for example, accurately summarised him as "a combination of high camp and high thinking - a Fabian in a frock", while Hunter Davies, who edited the Sunday Times magazine while Chatwin worked for it, considered his writing "all purple prose and self indulgence".

However, because of the emotional and professional ties which bound her to him, Clapp understandably cannot even begin to put her subject into a context wider than that defined by Chatwin himself. Herein lies the danger of his considerable charm. Bruce Chatwin was forever refining and reinventing his own myth, skipping over aspects of the past which could not comfortably be accommodated in his latest image make over.

Susannah Clapp is honest enough to recognise the fantasist in her friend and, while not investigating the causes of this character trait, she attempts where possible to unravel truth from what wits at times quite deliberate falsehood.

The most notable and widely known instance of Chatwin's calculated obfuscation concerned his terminal illness. Despite knowing he was HIV positive, he preferred toe put out the story that he had an obscure Chinese illness, of which there were only 10 other recorded instances. Of course, the state of Chatwin's health was entirely his own affair. However, it is indicative of the man that, rather than keep silent on the subject, he should choose to circulate falsehoods suggesting that had succumbed not to an unfortunately widespread virus but something rare and exotic.

For many of his admirers, Chatwin's delight in the mysterious was part of his charm, as were the contradictions in his nature. He professed to despise collecting, yet he had worked at Sotheby's for many years advising collectors and always seemed to have surrounded himself with choice possessions.

He was fascinated by nomadism but still managed to settle in comfortable surroundings and was a notable gourmand. He remained married to the same woman for more than 20 years, during which he had several passionate affairs with men. ,And although he was aged 48 at the time of his death, he forever seemed to be the golden boy of English letters.

Chatwin's perennial youthfulness was both his greatest mystery and an explanation for his inflated literary reputation. Although he had worked as a journalist for some years, he was 37 when In Patagonia was published, thereby making a somewhat belated debut as a writer.

He produced only four books and, combined with a relatively short career, this left behind the suggestion of unfulfilled promise. Bruce Chatwin became the Rupert Brooke of his generation, or a latter day Thomas Chatterton, whose death was portrayed as a shattering loss both to his "friends and to England.

Eventually, what he represented is likely to be of more permanent interest than what he wrote. Probably without realising what she was doing, Susannah Clapp has produced a book which reflects just how desperate the English literary world now is for men of substance to the point where a writer's personal charm could be regarded as significant for his reputation.