On the 25 December 1956, Robert Walser was found, stretched out in the snow, having died while taking a Christmas Day stroll. Thus the life of one of Switzerland's greatest ever writers came to an end. A life that with the passage of the years had come increasingly apart at the seams, which had driven Walser into isolation, to the verge of suicide and into the madhouse – but during which he created prose that, in its thoroughly unique mixture of humour and melancholy, surpassed everything that had gone before. Jürg Amann approaches Robert Walser in a literary essay based around the stages of the writer's life, supported by images of Walser's life and an accompanying chronicle. Due to their autobiographical hue, the quotations from Walser's writing ideally complement this portrait of his life. This creates a unique type of biography, which in no way attempts to pigeonhole Walser, but offers readers the opportunity to rediscover this fascinating author for themselves.