This title deals with a new introduction by Philip Hensher. ''Radiant with observation, never wasting a word, funny and sympathetic''. (Stephen Spender). Berlin, the Greek Islands, London and California. 1928, 1932, 1988 and 1940. Four portraits, four settings, four narrators, all known as ''Christopher Isherwood''; all connected through their own experiences of private sexual hell. Often regarded as the best of his novels, ''Down There on a Visit'' tells the vivid stories of Isherwood's life that, together with the ''Berlin Stories'', were to have comprised his great unfinished epic novel. ''May be the best Christopher Isherwood has written. A deeply intelligent and quietly compelling story''. (''New York Times'').