Over dusty years I ask you:

— Donovan, "Epistle to Dippy"

NEW YORK — Spying Donovan in the corridors at Sirius Satellite Radio in Manhattan is a bit like seeing one of those Japanese soldiers emerge from the jungles of the Philippines decades after the war has ended. He looks like a man disconnected from the flow of time.

Forty years after the release of his first hit, "Catch the Wind," a song that vaulted folk music into the vanguard of pop, Donovan still cuts a pixieish figure, shoulder-length hair framing his creased yet boyish pug face. As he walks the hallway with a corkscrew gait, the remnant of a polio vaccine that withered his right leg as a boy in Glasgow, Scotland, he spritzes himself with a vial of floral essence.

Flower power is back. And this refugee from the '60s arrives with precious artifacts from that era: "Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan," a gaudily decorated four-disc career retrospective; "The Hurdy Gurdy Man," an effervescent autobiography; and a tour.

Donovan, 59, has just completed a series of book signings in Britain, where "The Hurdy Gurdy Man" was first published. Over and over again, the composer of "Mellow Yellow," "Sunshine Superman" and "Jennifer Juniper" says, people approached him to express how much his music meant to them or how a particular song changed their lives. "At first, it was kind of uncomfortable, wondering what to say. Then I realized, 'Of course. It's my job.' "

It's a career that came with its own brand of on-the-job training. Thanks to a series of performances on the TV show "Ready Steady Go!" in 1965, Donovan was a sensation in England before he had a record out.

When he received his first recording contract that year, he was still a teenager, so his father had to sign. "They said, 'What's your name?' 'Donovan Leitch.' They said, 'Would Donovan be OK?' So one name was it. Me and Cher and Elvis."

His ascent was dizzying. "It was my intention to join the folk artists of the day, to seek them out," he says. Donovan's speaking tone is hushed but animated, as if he were narrating a children's book. "In quick succession, I met Derroll Adams, the sidekick of (Ramblin') Jack Elliott, the first disciple of Woody Guthrie. Derroll introduced me to Buffy Saint Marie, who introduced me to Joan Baez, who introduced me to Bob Dylan, who introduced me to the Beatles."

In "Hurdy Gurdy Man," Donovan relates the surreal circumstances of that last meeting. Stoned on hash, he went to visit Dylan at his suite at London's Savoy Hotel and was ushered into a darkened room where Dylan sat on the floor watching ice skating on the telly. After a few minutes of ice capades, Donovan realized that John, Paul, George and Ringo were silently perched on a couch and chairs behind him.

It was a bumper year for pop music, as Donovan says in the book: "British fans voted me 'Brightest Hope' of 1965, and I was invited to play the New Musical Express Poll Winners concert at Wembley." The roster of bands included Herman's Hermits, the Animals, the Beatles, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Kinks, the Moody Blues and the Rolling Stones.

Donovan gives his autobiography an intimate feeling by focusing on his relationships as much as he does on his music. He had two children with Enid Stulberger, Donovan Jr. and Ione Skye, both of whom were raised in the States and became actors. In 1970, he married Linda Lawrence, whom he terms "my wife and muse," becoming stepfather to Julian, her son with the late Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones.

The couple have two daughters, Astrella Celeste and Oriole Nebula, but by the time they were born, Donovan had essentially withdrawn from show business (although he continued to record through the '70s).

"I walked away because the job was done," he explains. "The mission was complete. The bohemian manifesto had been introduced by some of my songs and my friends' songs. What else was there to do? I became a recluse many times and enjoyed a private life I didn't have during the '60s."

Ironically, interest in his music was rekindled when his songs were licensed for TV commercials — "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" for Love's Baby Soft perfume, "Mellow Yellow" for the Gap, and, most recently, "Catch the Wind" for Volvo and "Happiness Runs" for Delta Airlines.