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Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas
Edward Thomas was perhaps the most beguiling and influential of First World War poets. Now All Roads Lead to France is an account of his final five years, centred on his extraordinary friendship with Robert Frost and Thomas' fatal decision to fight in the war.
The book also evokes an astonishingly creative moment in English literature, when London was a battleground for new, ambitious kinds of writing. A generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost and Rupert Brooke were 'making it new' - vehemently and pugnaciously. These larger-than-life characters surround a central figure, tormented by his work and his marriage. But as his friendship with Frost blossomed, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift. In 1914 the two friends formed the ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century.
But the War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to the safety of New England while Thomas stayed to fight for the Old. It is these roads taken - and those not taken - that are at the heart of this remarkable book, which culminates in Thomas' tragic death on Easter Monday 1917.
The book also evokes an astonishingly creative moment in English literature, when London was a battleground for new, ambitious kinds of writing. A generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost and Rupert Brooke were 'making it new' - vehemently and pugnaciously. These larger-than-life characters surround a central figure, tormented by his work and his marriage. But as his friendship with Frost blossomed, Thomas wrote poem after poem, and his emotional affliction began to lift. In 1914 the two friends formed the ideas that would produce some of the most remarkable verse of the twentieth century.
But the War put an ocean between them: Frost returned to the safety of New England while Thomas stayed to fight for the Old. It is these roads taken - and those not taken - that are at the heart of this remarkable book, which culminates in Thomas' tragic death on Easter Monday 1917.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
January 17, 2014
Not quite a biography, but a very good analysis of Thomas and his poetry and also his friendship with Robert Frost. Hollis's style does not lead to a light touch, but his analysis of the poetry is excellent. Thomas was a complex character, who came late to poetry, having been a prose writer, reviewer and critic. It was his friendship with Frost that really stimulated his poetic endeavours.
Thomas does not come across as a particularly likeable character, but Hollis analyses and explains his attitude to his wife and children (I wonder, sometimes, why so many intelligent and creative men treat their families so appallingly). He often appeared to drift into situations; the army being a case in point, he probably had diabetes and a decent medical would have meant a non combat role.
I have never been passionate about Thomas as a poet, preferring Sassoon and Owen as war poets and Clare as a nature poet; but some of his poetry is moving; here is a snatch on In Memoriam;
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
The development of Frost as a poet is also well treated, especially the analysis of "The Road not Taken" which Frost wrote during his friendship with Thomas.
Thomas's relationship with the Georgian poets and the Dymock group, who are mostly now forgotten (who remembers Lascelles Abercrombie or Wilfred Gibson), but Hollis brings them to life. Other luminaries flit through the pages; Robert Graves and Rupert Brooke. Ezra Pound is also involved in the story and comes across as quite a difficult character, but the effect of the war on all of them was earth shattering. Pound was especially horrified by the way Britain had sent her young men to be slaughtered; "For an old bitch gone in the teeth, for a botched civilization".
Hollis also looks at Thomas's friendships with eleanor Farjeon and Edna Clarke Hall and his long lasting effects on their lives.
All in all this is a good study of an interesting poet and was worth taking the time and effort over. I'm still not as enamoured of Thomas's poetry, but I will probably go back to Frost, who came across as an interesting and decent chap.
Thomas does not come across as a particularly likeable character, but Hollis analyses and explains his attitude to his wife and children (I wonder, sometimes, why so many intelligent and creative men treat their families so appallingly). He often appeared to drift into situations; the army being a case in point, he probably had diabetes and a decent medical would have meant a non combat role.
I have never been passionate about Thomas as a poet, preferring Sassoon and Owen as war poets and Clare as a nature poet; but some of his poetry is moving; here is a snatch on In Memoriam;
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
The development of Frost as a poet is also well treated, especially the analysis of "The Road not Taken" which Frost wrote during his friendship with Thomas.
Thomas's relationship with the Georgian poets and the Dymock group, who are mostly now forgotten (who remembers Lascelles Abercrombie or Wilfred Gibson), but Hollis brings them to life. Other luminaries flit through the pages; Robert Graves and Rupert Brooke. Ezra Pound is also involved in the story and comes across as quite a difficult character, but the effect of the war on all of them was earth shattering. Pound was especially horrified by the way Britain had sent her young men to be slaughtered; "For an old bitch gone in the teeth, for a botched civilization".
Hollis also looks at Thomas's friendships with eleanor Farjeon and Edna Clarke Hall and his long lasting effects on their lives.
All in all this is a good study of an interesting poet and was worth taking the time and effort over. I'm still not as enamoured of Thomas's poetry, but I will probably go back to Frost, who came across as an interesting and decent chap.
July 10, 2023
A poet on a poet.
Remarkably, Edward Thomas would not start writing poetry until the last 3 years of his life. Prior to that, he was a Literary Reviewer and author of a number of prose works, largely non fiction, although he did write one not very successful novel. It was his great friend and fellow poet Robert Frost who encouraged him to write in this form. Frost was convinced from reading Thomas’s prose that this was his natural mode of communication; Thomas took some convincing. But Frost was right.
The book is in large part about their relationship - which was invaluable - to them and to us. Theirs was a fairly chance meeting in The Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury, London. Frost had recently arrived in England from America with his wife and children. Thomas was instrumental through his reviews in launching Frost’s career on both sides of the Atlantic. Equally, without Frost’s influence it is hard to believe that Thomas would have written poetry and our world would have been much poorer as a result. In the last years of Thomas’s life their lives were inextricably linked.
The book is engrossing on many levels for me. It concerns itself with the years leading up to the First World War, the cultural scene in Britain and Ireland, especially with reference to poetry. Thomas reviewed and knew many of his contemporary and near contemporary poets, some better than others. – Brooke, Pound, De La Mare, W.H.Davies, Elliot, the great Yeats and lesser figures now, but not then, Wilfrid Gibson, Lascelles Abercrombie and John Drinkwater. Sadly, there is no record of a meeting between Owen and Thomas, though they must have had close shaves: both men serving in the Artists Rifles and frequenting the Poetry Bookshop. Much of the period covered by the book saw Thomas living (when he chose to!) with his wife and children in Steep, near Petersfield, part of my home county of Hampshire and a part which I love.
Edward Thomas is an intensely interesting man, though not always a likeable one. His wife, Helen, strikes me as a very remarkable woman, who had quite a lot to contend with, and I’d like to read more about her. Thomas’s relationships with other women (and indeed Helen’s too), particularly Eleanor Farjeon and Edna Clarke Hall, is fascinating in itself.
The story of Thomas’s last years is well told here, particularly from the perspective of a fellow poet. Thomas the man, depressive and selfish did much at times to alienate my sympathy but never my interest. He was a first rate critic, uncompromising - but harshest of all, perhaps, upon himself. That may explain, in large part, why he chose to enlist and hide his health issues which would almost certainly have meant rejection by the army authorities. An inspired and inspirational poet who Ted Hughes would describe as “the father of us all”.
Remarkably, Edward Thomas would not start writing poetry until the last 3 years of his life. Prior to that, he was a Literary Reviewer and author of a number of prose works, largely non fiction, although he did write one not very successful novel. It was his great friend and fellow poet Robert Frost who encouraged him to write in this form. Frost was convinced from reading Thomas’s prose that this was his natural mode of communication; Thomas took some convincing. But Frost was right.
The book is in large part about their relationship - which was invaluable - to them and to us. Theirs was a fairly chance meeting in The Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury, London. Frost had recently arrived in England from America with his wife and children. Thomas was instrumental through his reviews in launching Frost’s career on both sides of the Atlantic. Equally, without Frost’s influence it is hard to believe that Thomas would have written poetry and our world would have been much poorer as a result. In the last years of Thomas’s life their lives were inextricably linked.
The book is engrossing on many levels for me. It concerns itself with the years leading up to the First World War, the cultural scene in Britain and Ireland, especially with reference to poetry. Thomas reviewed and knew many of his contemporary and near contemporary poets, some better than others. – Brooke, Pound, De La Mare, W.H.Davies, Elliot, the great Yeats and lesser figures now, but not then, Wilfrid Gibson, Lascelles Abercrombie and John Drinkwater. Sadly, there is no record of a meeting between Owen and Thomas, though they must have had close shaves: both men serving in the Artists Rifles and frequenting the Poetry Bookshop. Much of the period covered by the book saw Thomas living (when he chose to!) with his wife and children in Steep, near Petersfield, part of my home county of Hampshire and a part which I love.
Edward Thomas is an intensely interesting man, though not always a likeable one. His wife, Helen, strikes me as a very remarkable woman, who had quite a lot to contend with, and I’d like to read more about her. Thomas’s relationships with other women (and indeed Helen’s too), particularly Eleanor Farjeon and Edna Clarke Hall, is fascinating in itself.
The story of Thomas’s last years is well told here, particularly from the perspective of a fellow poet. Thomas the man, depressive and selfish did much at times to alienate my sympathy but never my interest. He was a first rate critic, uncompromising - but harshest of all, perhaps, upon himself. That may explain, in large part, why he chose to enlist and hide his health issues which would almost certainly have meant rejection by the army authorities. An inspired and inspirational poet who Ted Hughes would describe as “the father of us all”.
January 20, 2014
Although the subject of the book is Edward Thomas and particularly focusing on his relationship with his wife and his friendship with Robert Frost, the real hero of this biography is poetry.
It’s possible for authors to approach the subject of their biographies from various points across a spectrum, which ranges from outright admiration and all-round praise of their subject, to disdainful character assassination. There are well written and interesting books that have been produced across the entire range of view points. Hollis’ volume could be located at a moderately negative point on the spectrum when it comes to Thomas’ personality and those of the other major characters in his story. In writing about Thomas’ poetry however, the biographical spectrometer shifts to high praise.
Thomas is shown as an often prickly and difficult husband and father, quite willing to take extensive breaks from his family when his frustrations got the better of him, a writer who strongly felt the stresses and strains of trying to make a living from his prose writing, and one who eventually joined up to fight in WW1 as much from economic reasons of supporting a family, as from a sense of duty or patriotism. His wife is shown as being out of touch with the reality of their situation much of the time, a wife who hangs onto him in a very needy way. Frost is seen as capable of great arrogance & over-riding ambition, one who as a poet, consciously created a folksy farmer persona, which was more about an attractive public image, than drawn from reality and truth.
All that said, Hollis takes care to provide balance negative aspects of his portraits with more positive and sympathetic characteristics and actions of each character. In the end what he does produce are reasonably rounded pictures of flawed human beings, rather than the caricatured horrors or heroes of some biographies.
The first half of the book focuses on providing a narrative of Thomas’ life. The comments he makes about his writing, which until 1914 was exclusively prose, are brief and largely accept Thomas’ own dismissive attitude to this work, written under the pressures of deadlines & of earning his living. At its best he judges it as effective, but as Thomas faced the increasing difficulties of earning enough to support a growing family, plus the simple pressures for Thomas of living a family life, the quality of the prose is seen as lessening, increasingly taking on the qualities of hackwork.
Having read at least extensive excerpts of his prose, I think both Thomas himself & Hollis are not entirely fair to at least some of the prose work.
However, what Hollis does achieve by his mixed representations of people and prose writing, is to clear the floor to praise the real class act in this book – the poetry. Considering the wonderful poetry that Thomas wrote, I find it remarkable that it was not until November 1914, and with Frost’s encouragement, before he made his first known efforts to seriously write poetry.
With the earliest poems, Hollis takes great care to record the full process of composition and revision that Thomas worked through. His critical comments about these and about all the poems he selects for comment, do what all good criticism should do, and help to extend the readers (at least this reader’s) understanding of the poems. It’s always a pleasure to find a good biographer who is also a very good critic, because many biographies of poets while excellent on life & character are weak on criticism of the poems.
One of my favourite aspects of the book was Hollis’ descriptions of the early history of the famous Poetry Bookshop. The attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the place, the descriptions of eminent poets of the time – some who have since grown in renown, others now ignored or forgotten - was a minor highlight of the book.
All-in-all “All Roads Lead to France was a very readable, concise, informative, enjoyable book, which gave me a greater understanding of Thomas life and poetry, of the world & literary scene within which he lived, and more than anything else helped to focus attention and admiration where they should be focused – on Thomas’ poems.
It’s possible for authors to approach the subject of their biographies from various points across a spectrum, which ranges from outright admiration and all-round praise of their subject, to disdainful character assassination. There are well written and interesting books that have been produced across the entire range of view points. Hollis’ volume could be located at a moderately negative point on the spectrum when it comes to Thomas’ personality and those of the other major characters in his story. In writing about Thomas’ poetry however, the biographical spectrometer shifts to high praise.
Thomas is shown as an often prickly and difficult husband and father, quite willing to take extensive breaks from his family when his frustrations got the better of him, a writer who strongly felt the stresses and strains of trying to make a living from his prose writing, and one who eventually joined up to fight in WW1 as much from economic reasons of supporting a family, as from a sense of duty or patriotism. His wife is shown as being out of touch with the reality of their situation much of the time, a wife who hangs onto him in a very needy way. Frost is seen as capable of great arrogance & over-riding ambition, one who as a poet, consciously created a folksy farmer persona, which was more about an attractive public image, than drawn from reality and truth.
All that said, Hollis takes care to provide balance negative aspects of his portraits with more positive and sympathetic characteristics and actions of each character. In the end what he does produce are reasonably rounded pictures of flawed human beings, rather than the caricatured horrors or heroes of some biographies.
The first half of the book focuses on providing a narrative of Thomas’ life. The comments he makes about his writing, which until 1914 was exclusively prose, are brief and largely accept Thomas’ own dismissive attitude to this work, written under the pressures of deadlines & of earning his living. At its best he judges it as effective, but as Thomas faced the increasing difficulties of earning enough to support a growing family, plus the simple pressures for Thomas of living a family life, the quality of the prose is seen as lessening, increasingly taking on the qualities of hackwork.
Having read at least extensive excerpts of his prose, I think both Thomas himself & Hollis are not entirely fair to at least some of the prose work.
However, what Hollis does achieve by his mixed representations of people and prose writing, is to clear the floor to praise the real class act in this book – the poetry. Considering the wonderful poetry that Thomas wrote, I find it remarkable that it was not until November 1914, and with Frost’s encouragement, before he made his first known efforts to seriously write poetry.
With the earliest poems, Hollis takes great care to record the full process of composition and revision that Thomas worked through. His critical comments about these and about all the poems he selects for comment, do what all good criticism should do, and help to extend the readers (at least this reader’s) understanding of the poems. It’s always a pleasure to find a good biographer who is also a very good critic, because many biographies of poets while excellent on life & character are weak on criticism of the poems.
One of my favourite aspects of the book was Hollis’ descriptions of the early history of the famous Poetry Bookshop. The attempt to recreate the atmosphere of the place, the descriptions of eminent poets of the time – some who have since grown in renown, others now ignored or forgotten - was a minor highlight of the book.
All-in-all “All Roads Lead to France was a very readable, concise, informative, enjoyable book, which gave me a greater understanding of Thomas life and poetry, of the world & literary scene within which he lived, and more than anything else helped to focus attention and admiration where they should be focused – on Thomas’ poems.
May 25, 2013
Last October I started reading Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways. I still haven’t finished it – in part because in the first few pages, as Macfarlane is hiking the ancient Icknield Way, he recalls a previous hiker and writer – Edward Thomas – whom he calls “the guiding spirit of this book.” Like most Americans, my primary association with Thomas is Robert Frost. The two men became best friends, irreplaceable friends, walking and talking through the countryside when Frost was living in England just before World War I. Frost gave Thomas the confidence to write poetry, even as he chided him for his indecisiveness. In fact, Frost’s famous poem, “The Road Not Taken,” that old chestnut I was forced to recite in 9th grade, was written for Thomas. Thomas wasn’t flattered. In fact he felt taunted by it – and in response wrote “Roads,” the haunting poem from which this biography gets its name. Frost returned to New England; after a period of excruciating indecision, Thomas headed off for France – where he was duly shot.
Macfarlane’s reference put me on the track of Thomas and I discovered that Matthew Hollis had just written this biography, a book almost as melancholy as its subject. It took me six months to read because I couldn’t face the end. Before Frost, Thomas had written reams of reviews, criticism, biography, accounts of the English landscape – over a million words by his own estimate. “Hackery” was his word, and several British reviewers repeat the term, although Helen Vendler (in what I consider the best review of the book) rates the writing higher, as did Frost who heard poetry in the prose.
The early poems echo with Frost’s “sentence sounds” but Thomas quickly discovered his own voice, writing (as Macfarlane says) a lifetime’s poetry in a few short months. What I (along with everyone I suppose) treasure in these poems is the way Thomas hovers at the edge of language, translating what one senses bodily – movement, colors, smells (“Today I think/Only with scents”), beauty and blackness. "Adlestrop" is a psychic snapshot captured when a train halts by a small station in the summer Oxfordshire countryside:
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name
And willow, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
A very English moment – but what dogged me through the book, tortured me so that I’d put it down for weeks, was the self-inflicted misery of Thomas’s life, his near poverty, his burdened family, his awful sense of self. The shadows grow darker and longer after Frost departs and the war begins. Thomas is so miserable with himself that he feels drawn to France, as if his passion for life could only be answered by suicide. He wrote some marvelous words about why he had to go; perhaps he believed them. But Hollis makes it clear he'd damned himself out of unhappiness and uncertainty. He wasn't alone. The carnage of the First World War is still beyond belief, the hideous stupidity of young, intelligent men mowed down by the thousands on a single day, day after day, for years. Thomas knew he would not return.
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance…
Only 144 poems to redeem a wasted life – but they do. Completely. "Dylan Thomas believed he had grown to be loved by so very many that we could hardly think of a time when he was not alive. 'It is as though we had always known his poems, and were only waiting for him to write them.'"
Macfarlane’s reference put me on the track of Thomas and I discovered that Matthew Hollis had just written this biography, a book almost as melancholy as its subject. It took me six months to read because I couldn’t face the end. Before Frost, Thomas had written reams of reviews, criticism, biography, accounts of the English landscape – over a million words by his own estimate. “Hackery” was his word, and several British reviewers repeat the term, although Helen Vendler (in what I consider the best review of the book) rates the writing higher, as did Frost who heard poetry in the prose.
The early poems echo with Frost’s “sentence sounds” but Thomas quickly discovered his own voice, writing (as Macfarlane says) a lifetime’s poetry in a few short months. What I (along with everyone I suppose) treasure in these poems is the way Thomas hovers at the edge of language, translating what one senses bodily – movement, colors, smells (“Today I think/Only with scents”), beauty and blackness. "Adlestrop" is a psychic snapshot captured when a train halts by a small station in the summer Oxfordshire countryside:
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name
And willow, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
A very English moment – but what dogged me through the book, tortured me so that I’d put it down for weeks, was the self-inflicted misery of Thomas’s life, his near poverty, his burdened family, his awful sense of self. The shadows grow darker and longer after Frost departs and the war begins. Thomas is so miserable with himself that he feels drawn to France, as if his passion for life could only be answered by suicide. He wrote some marvelous words about why he had to go; perhaps he believed them. But Hollis makes it clear he'd damned himself out of unhappiness and uncertainty. He wasn't alone. The carnage of the First World War is still beyond belief, the hideous stupidity of young, intelligent men mowed down by the thousands on a single day, day after day, for years. Thomas knew he would not return.
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance…
Only 144 poems to redeem a wasted life – but they do. Completely. "Dylan Thomas believed he had grown to be loved by so very many that we could hardly think of a time when he was not alive. 'It is as though we had always known his poems, and were only waiting for him to write them.'"
May 8, 2012
There are only two things I don’t like about this book. One is the photograph of the intense looking man on the front and back of the cover. So far as I can see this is not Edward Thomas, because there are two photographs of Thomas in the middle of the volume and he doesn’t look like that. These photos are very poetic looking model who in fact resembles Rupert Brooke. But Rupert Brooke is really ‘out’ these days, while Thomas is increasingly ‘in’.
The other thing I don’t like is that I didn’t write this book myself. I would love to have written it. Why have I never been in a position to research and write a whole biography? This one traces not only some years from a particular human life in which I have long been interested; it explores what was going on in literature (and in particular poetry) in the UK in the few years before the WWII. It’s enormously interesting. Matthew Hollis, a poet himself, dives into all that complexity and emerges with a strong narrative thread, a compelling style and all sorts of interesting facts. He writes well.
The central relationship of the book is not anything to do with Edward Thomas and the three key women in his life at this time (I always identify with Eleanor Farjeon, though she is a minor player here) but with Robert Frost, the struggling American poet, who came to England to pursue his art, who didn’t die during the war and of whom everybody has heard.
Edward Thomas was subject to depression. You can’t read his work without being aware of that. I didn’t know, before this book, that he suspected he might have type 1 diabetes, and this might have explained some of the mood swings. He was a difficult man. People became very fond of him anyway—his long-suffering wife, Helen, was desperately keen to hang onto him. He seems to have had some involvement with the rather more beautiful artist Edna Clarke Hall towards the end of his life—maybe not an affair, maybe treading the edges of it. Helen’s response to all this was to wish she had had Edna Clarke Hall’s beauty, so she could have given it to Edward. I wanted Helen Thomas to be angry with him, to be furious because he was so difficult, so impossible to live with. But he found it impossible to live with himself. He disarms criticism because of that.
I was reading this biography at the same time as Sam Harris on Free Will. The two books are admirable companions. Many of Thomas’s poems, as Hollis rightly points out, are “about moments that cannot be seen or chosen. Poets in their yellow wood [that’s a reference to Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’) might claim to choose but not Thomas: his roads were not of his making and do not yield up their destination readily.”
Thomas had, apparently, a choice in 1915: he could have taken his family to the States. Frost had given him a standing invitation. Or he could join up and fight. Had he told the truth, a test for diabetes might have ruled him out anyway. In the end, however, there was no choice. He explained his reasons for fighting: he picked up a handful of earth and showed it to Eleanor Farjeon. That’s what he was fighting for, he said. But of course it wasn’t that simple. Sam Harris could have told him that. The handful of earth was simply the way he explained it to himself. For a whole variety of reasons Thomas’s choice was inevitable: as in his poem ‘Lights Out’, he could not choose:
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
And of course that poem is not just about sleep, or death either, just as Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ is not about choosing, but about not choosing—and Hollis’s discussion of this is fascinating too.
I didn’t choose to buy this book. It fell fortuitously into my hands, a gift from a friend who didn’t even know I was interested in Edward Thomas. But if I had been in full control of my conscious choices, I would have bought it at twice the price. It’s a terrific book: pure pleasure. It enhanced a whole week of my life, and I gave up all else I should have been doing to finish it.
The other thing I don’t like is that I didn’t write this book myself. I would love to have written it. Why have I never been in a position to research and write a whole biography? This one traces not only some years from a particular human life in which I have long been interested; it explores what was going on in literature (and in particular poetry) in the UK in the few years before the WWII. It’s enormously interesting. Matthew Hollis, a poet himself, dives into all that complexity and emerges with a strong narrative thread, a compelling style and all sorts of interesting facts. He writes well.
The central relationship of the book is not anything to do with Edward Thomas and the three key women in his life at this time (I always identify with Eleanor Farjeon, though she is a minor player here) but with Robert Frost, the struggling American poet, who came to England to pursue his art, who didn’t die during the war and of whom everybody has heard.
Edward Thomas was subject to depression. You can’t read his work without being aware of that. I didn’t know, before this book, that he suspected he might have type 1 diabetes, and this might have explained some of the mood swings. He was a difficult man. People became very fond of him anyway—his long-suffering wife, Helen, was desperately keen to hang onto him. He seems to have had some involvement with the rather more beautiful artist Edna Clarke Hall towards the end of his life—maybe not an affair, maybe treading the edges of it. Helen’s response to all this was to wish she had had Edna Clarke Hall’s beauty, so she could have given it to Edward. I wanted Helen Thomas to be angry with him, to be furious because he was so difficult, so impossible to live with. But he found it impossible to live with himself. He disarms criticism because of that.
I was reading this biography at the same time as Sam Harris on Free Will. The two books are admirable companions. Many of Thomas’s poems, as Hollis rightly points out, are “about moments that cannot be seen or chosen. Poets in their yellow wood [that’s a reference to Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’) might claim to choose but not Thomas: his roads were not of his making and do not yield up their destination readily.”
Thomas had, apparently, a choice in 1915: he could have taken his family to the States. Frost had given him a standing invitation. Or he could join up and fight. Had he told the truth, a test for diabetes might have ruled him out anyway. In the end, however, there was no choice. He explained his reasons for fighting: he picked up a handful of earth and showed it to Eleanor Farjeon. That’s what he was fighting for, he said. But of course it wasn’t that simple. Sam Harris could have told him that. The handful of earth was simply the way he explained it to himself. For a whole variety of reasons Thomas’s choice was inevitable: as in his poem ‘Lights Out’, he could not choose:
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
And of course that poem is not just about sleep, or death either, just as Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ is not about choosing, but about not choosing—and Hollis’s discussion of this is fascinating too.
I didn’t choose to buy this book. It fell fortuitously into my hands, a gift from a friend who didn’t even know I was interested in Edward Thomas. But if I had been in full control of my conscious choices, I would have bought it at twice the price. It’s a terrific book: pure pleasure. It enhanced a whole week of my life, and I gave up all else I should have been doing to finish it.
October 13, 2015
I started to read this book because of the evocative title; it sounded like poetry. It was poetry; from the poem “Roads” by Edward Thomas, written in January 1916:
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
This books tells of the last years of Edward Thomas, critic and writer, who feared at the age of 36 that he was becoming a hack. When Robert Frost was living in England, Thomas met Frost. They became close friends, and continued to correspond after Frost returned to the United States in February 1915. Frost encouraged Thomas to start writing poetry.
After Frost returned to America, he sent Thomas a copy of “The Road Not Taken” , intended as a gentle tease of Thomas’ frequently expressed indecision. In combination with other factors in Thomas’ life, it may have been the final nudge for Thomas’ enlistment in July 1915. Thomas subsequently volunteered for duty in France as an artillery officer and was killed at the beginning of the Battle of Arras, April, 1917.
This book is in part a biography of Edward Thomas’ life, somewhat a discussion of the state of poetry in Britain pre-Great War, and a story of the late blossoming of a poet. The finest part of the book is that covering the short period between November 1914 and July 1915, when Thomas was discovering his powers as a poet.
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
This books tells of the last years of Edward Thomas, critic and writer, who feared at the age of 36 that he was becoming a hack. When Robert Frost was living in England, Thomas met Frost. They became close friends, and continued to correspond after Frost returned to the United States in February 1915. Frost encouraged Thomas to start writing poetry.
After Frost returned to America, he sent Thomas a copy of “The Road Not Taken” , intended as a gentle tease of Thomas’ frequently expressed indecision. In combination with other factors in Thomas’ life, it may have been the final nudge for Thomas’ enlistment in July 1915. Thomas subsequently volunteered for duty in France as an artillery officer and was killed at the beginning of the Battle of Arras, April, 1917.
This book is in part a biography of Edward Thomas’ life, somewhat a discussion of the state of poetry in Britain pre-Great War, and a story of the late blossoming of a poet. The finest part of the book is that covering the short period between November 1914 and July 1915, when Thomas was discovering his powers as a poet.
June 21, 2019
Edward Thomas is one of my favourite poets, and when I spotted a copy of Matthew Hollis' Costa Award-winning biography, Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas in a secondhand bookshop in Ypres last year, I could not resist picking it up. I had originally planned to read it over Remembrance Day but, as with a lot of my reading plans, this did not pan out.
Thomas was killed close to Arras, France, on the Easter Monday of 1917. The book's very short preface touchingly ends in the following manner: 'Edward Thomas left the dugout behind his post and leaned into the opening to take a moment to fill his pipe. A shell passed so close to him that the blast of air stopped his heart. He fell without a mark on his body.'
In Now All Roads Lead to France, Hollis takes into account Thomas' final five years, and 'follows him from his beloved English countryside to the battlefield in France where he lost his life.' Thomas' friendship with American poet Robert Frost, who encouraged his writing, takes prevalence here, but we also learn about his upbringing, and strained, often absent, relationship with his three children and wife, Helen. We hear about their relationship from its earliest days.
Now All Roads Lead to France has been split into four distinct sections, all of which correspond to the places in which Thomas found himself - 'Steep, 1913', 'Dymock, 1914', 'High Beech, 1915-16', and 'Arras, 1917'. Each also includes a map of the corresponding place.
Hollis begins by outlining the changing face of poetry, from its stuffy, conservative Victorianism, to something new and bold, culminating in the Georgians and the Imagists. The Georgians, writes Hollis, 'looked to the local, the commonplace and the day-to-day, mistrusting grandiosity, philosophical enquiry or spiritual cant. Many held an attachment to the traditions of English Romantic verse... The style was innocent, intimate and direct; lyric in form, rhythmic in drive, it detailed short sketches of the natural world with larger meditations on the condition of the human heart... It employed whimsy in the place of calculation... its subject matter would be as everyday as a country lane or a village fence post.' Imagism provided the rivalry to this Georgian movement. The Imagists employed 'direct treatment, a pared language a relatively free verse... No sing-song rhythms or cloying subject matter, no abstractions, no ornament, no superfluous word; this was language stripped down to the bone...'. Hollis, a poet himself, is of course adept in discussing these poetic movements, and commenting upon their importance in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War.
Hollis then goes on to introduce Thomas at a real point of crisis in his life. In 1913, he is thirty-four, with 'desperately low' spirits. A father of three, and married, his depressive episodes caused him to treat his family badly: 'The only way he knew to break the cycle was to leave; sometimes his absences lasted days, at other times he could be gone for months. At these moments, even to drag himself home for a weekend was more than he could manage... [and] he convinced himself that they could be happy without him.' At this point in time, Thomas was an influential critic of verse, 'and his brilliant, uncompromising articles were the making of many young reputations and the breaking of others'. Although he had not yet embarked on his own poetic career, he had published over twenty works of prose, and 'edited or introduced a dozen more'. Throughout, the author has woven in excerpts from correspondence and diaries - not just Thomas', but Helen's too.
Hollis paints a fascinating and detailed portrait of Thomas. I was particularly taken with the physical description which he crafts of the poet: 'His expression was grave and detached, but his smile, when it came, could be coy, whimsical or proud. He rarely laughed... He spoke in a clear baritone, though often he kept his own counsel, and preferred the company of an individual to a group... He dressed in a suit of tawny tweed, which was old, sunned and slightly loose, and which, he liked to say, smelt of dog whenever it was damp. His jacket pockets were impossibly deep, and from these he would pull maps, apples and clay pipes in a procession as apparently endless as the scarves from a magician's hand.'
Carol Ann Duffy writes that Now All Roads Lead to France 'entranced' and 'inspired' her, and moved her to tears. I certainly did not feel that emotional whilst reading Hollis' biography, but there are scenes which strike such empathy and sympathy from the reader. Now All Roads Lead to France is the author's first work of prose, but it feels so well-established, and reads as though it has been penned by a master. This biography is incredibly accessible, and brings together a wealth of research in a readable, measured prose style.
Throughout, Hollis is perceptive and aware of his subject, and charts both his writing process and his bouts of depression. The cultural detail woven through the book has been clearly set out, and adds another, often important, dimension to the narrative. Although Now All Roads Lead to France is not a strictly chronological biography, the structure works wonderfully, and the entirety feels well rounded. Illuminating and exemplary, Now All Roads Lead to France is one of the best biographies which I have read in a long time.
Thomas was killed close to Arras, France, on the Easter Monday of 1917. The book's very short preface touchingly ends in the following manner: 'Edward Thomas left the dugout behind his post and leaned into the opening to take a moment to fill his pipe. A shell passed so close to him that the blast of air stopped his heart. He fell without a mark on his body.'
In Now All Roads Lead to France, Hollis takes into account Thomas' final five years, and 'follows him from his beloved English countryside to the battlefield in France where he lost his life.' Thomas' friendship with American poet Robert Frost, who encouraged his writing, takes prevalence here, but we also learn about his upbringing, and strained, often absent, relationship with his three children and wife, Helen. We hear about their relationship from its earliest days.
Now All Roads Lead to France has been split into four distinct sections, all of which correspond to the places in which Thomas found himself - 'Steep, 1913', 'Dymock, 1914', 'High Beech, 1915-16', and 'Arras, 1917'. Each also includes a map of the corresponding place.
Hollis begins by outlining the changing face of poetry, from its stuffy, conservative Victorianism, to something new and bold, culminating in the Georgians and the Imagists. The Georgians, writes Hollis, 'looked to the local, the commonplace and the day-to-day, mistrusting grandiosity, philosophical enquiry or spiritual cant. Many held an attachment to the traditions of English Romantic verse... The style was innocent, intimate and direct; lyric in form, rhythmic in drive, it detailed short sketches of the natural world with larger meditations on the condition of the human heart... It employed whimsy in the place of calculation... its subject matter would be as everyday as a country lane or a village fence post.' Imagism provided the rivalry to this Georgian movement. The Imagists employed 'direct treatment, a pared language a relatively free verse... No sing-song rhythms or cloying subject matter, no abstractions, no ornament, no superfluous word; this was language stripped down to the bone...'. Hollis, a poet himself, is of course adept in discussing these poetic movements, and commenting upon their importance in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War.
Hollis then goes on to introduce Thomas at a real point of crisis in his life. In 1913, he is thirty-four, with 'desperately low' spirits. A father of three, and married, his depressive episodes caused him to treat his family badly: 'The only way he knew to break the cycle was to leave; sometimes his absences lasted days, at other times he could be gone for months. At these moments, even to drag himself home for a weekend was more than he could manage... [and] he convinced himself that they could be happy without him.' At this point in time, Thomas was an influential critic of verse, 'and his brilliant, uncompromising articles were the making of many young reputations and the breaking of others'. Although he had not yet embarked on his own poetic career, he had published over twenty works of prose, and 'edited or introduced a dozen more'. Throughout, the author has woven in excerpts from correspondence and diaries - not just Thomas', but Helen's too.
Hollis paints a fascinating and detailed portrait of Thomas. I was particularly taken with the physical description which he crafts of the poet: 'His expression was grave and detached, but his smile, when it came, could be coy, whimsical or proud. He rarely laughed... He spoke in a clear baritone, though often he kept his own counsel, and preferred the company of an individual to a group... He dressed in a suit of tawny tweed, which was old, sunned and slightly loose, and which, he liked to say, smelt of dog whenever it was damp. His jacket pockets were impossibly deep, and from these he would pull maps, apples and clay pipes in a procession as apparently endless as the scarves from a magician's hand.'
Carol Ann Duffy writes that Now All Roads Lead to France 'entranced' and 'inspired' her, and moved her to tears. I certainly did not feel that emotional whilst reading Hollis' biography, but there are scenes which strike such empathy and sympathy from the reader. Now All Roads Lead to France is the author's first work of prose, but it feels so well-established, and reads as though it has been penned by a master. This biography is incredibly accessible, and brings together a wealth of research in a readable, measured prose style.
Throughout, Hollis is perceptive and aware of his subject, and charts both his writing process and his bouts of depression. The cultural detail woven through the book has been clearly set out, and adds another, often important, dimension to the narrative. Although Now All Roads Lead to France is not a strictly chronological biography, the structure works wonderfully, and the entirety feels well rounded. Illuminating and exemplary, Now All Roads Lead to France is one of the best biographies which I have read in a long time.
April 9, 2015
Follows Edward Thomas from the opening of the Munro bookshop in England to his WWI death. Also an interesting aspect was the Robert Frost element...Frost was the earliest supporter of Thomas and encouraged him to try his hand at poetry
February 21, 2015
This book does not belong to the genre that I normally read, in fact I didn't even know who Edward Thomas was. I bought this book for two reasons: it was in the discount bin in the bookstore, heavily discounted, secondly the artillery pieces on the cover of book misled me somewhat into thinking that this book would be skewed towards WWI action. It was left on my bookshelf for more than a year since I bought it and I only picked it up to read because this is the centennial year of the start of WWI.
Let me first get my complaints out of the way.
For a book centred on Edward Thomas, he only got the first passing mention on page 14 and it was not only until Page 16 when the story started to centre on him; this is not a book written straight to the point. Worse, a book so-titled made no mention of WWI until pg 142, almost halfway through, after which it meandered through other issues before reaching the last quarter when Thomas finally enlisted in the army. This book could have taken a number of other titles, "Edward Thomas and his Friend Robert Frost" would be a much less romantic but nevertheless more accurate one.
But there is much to like about this book. First of all, the writing. The first dozen pages started with the opening of the Poetry Bookshop in London and detoured to a description of the poetry scene in London through the different reigns. But what writing. One is left to wonder if Mr Hollis' knowledge of the poetry genre meant an active interest in poets and poetry, and the lyrical tone has found its way into his prose. (I found later that Hollis is indeed a poet himself.) Take this graphical depiction of the poets' quirks in the public reading of their works for example:
There are many more examples of beautiful, lyrical writing that is unfamiliar to me. But reading this book through the usual glasses with which I used to read my other books, I got a little impatient wondering when all roads were going to lead to France. A big part of the book was on Thomas's unhappy family life, a not-so-successful career, his friendship with Frost, and then his struggle whether or not to enlist and to become a poet. In the end, France occupied but some 20 pages of the book, but lest I forget, this book is not about France, but all roads leading to France. And all that happened to him, as carefully developed by the author were roads leading to France, and tortuous as they were to Thomas, they were beautiful to the reader.
I would like to briefly talk about Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. Personally, I hated this poem, unfairly, of course, as I hardly knew anything about it. But those last two lines, "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." are quoted to death by anyone who wanted to show that they had the courage to take a 'less traveled path' that it irritates me no end. I once came across a newspaper article where the journalist quoted this to show that she had taken the "path less traveled" by being a - journalist.
However, after one had been educated by the author on the context under which this poem was written, Frost's own mischievous caution to his audience, Thomas's strong reaction to it, and most of all the author's own perceptive questions about the poem (pg 234), one can't help but fall in love with it. Perhaps feeling a little snobbery too (now that I know it better than that journalist). But the rejoinder that came on page 261 was equally powerful, "Now all roads lead to France". Yes, now all roads lead to France, in Thomas's own words, he would be going to France.
In the epilogue, the author went back to describing those who in Thomas's circle and what happened to them during and after the war, much like how he described them at the beginning of the book in the Poetry Bookshop. Before that, he touched ever so softly on Thomas's own death when it came, never over-playing it, and one is left to feel sad, yet happy that "[h]e fell without a mark on his body."
A poet, and one who joined the army to fight a war, these are two ideas that I can never associate together. Yet in Thomas's case, and indeed those around him, this almost seemed like the only right thing to do. How did they, and in particular, Thomas come to this? It took another poet to tell us the story of this poet.
Let me first get my complaints out of the way.
For a book centred on Edward Thomas, he only got the first passing mention on page 14 and it was not only until Page 16 when the story started to centre on him; this is not a book written straight to the point. Worse, a book so-titled made no mention of WWI until pg 142, almost halfway through, after which it meandered through other issues before reaching the last quarter when Thomas finally enlisted in the army. This book could have taken a number of other titles, "Edward Thomas and his Friend Robert Frost" would be a much less romantic but nevertheless more accurate one.
But there is much to like about this book. First of all, the writing. The first dozen pages started with the opening of the Poetry Bookshop in London and detoured to a description of the poetry scene in London through the different reigns. But what writing. One is left to wonder if Mr Hollis' knowledge of the poetry genre meant an active interest in poets and poetry, and the lyrical tone has found its way into his prose. (I found later that Hollis is indeed a poet himself.) Take this graphical depiction of the poets' quirks in the public reading of their works for example:
Yeats recited to a sell-out audience, Wilfrid Gibson performed in a droning monotone; W. H. Davies suffered nerves (cured when he was encouraged to think of the whisky afterwards), Sturge Moore forgot his lines; Ford Madox Hueffer read hurriedly, Rupert Brooked inaudibly, and Ralph Hodgson, who could not tolerate so much as a mention of his own work, simply refused to read at all, while simply no one could silence the actorly John Drinkwater.
There are many more examples of beautiful, lyrical writing that is unfamiliar to me. But reading this book through the usual glasses with which I used to read my other books, I got a little impatient wondering when all roads were going to lead to France. A big part of the book was on Thomas's unhappy family life, a not-so-successful career, his friendship with Frost, and then his struggle whether or not to enlist and to become a poet. In the end, France occupied but some 20 pages of the book, but lest I forget, this book is not about France, but all roads leading to France. And all that happened to him, as carefully developed by the author were roads leading to France, and tortuous as they were to Thomas, they were beautiful to the reader.
I would like to briefly talk about Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken. Personally, I hated this poem, unfairly, of course, as I hardly knew anything about it. But those last two lines, "I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." are quoted to death by anyone who wanted to show that they had the courage to take a 'less traveled path' that it irritates me no end. I once came across a newspaper article where the journalist quoted this to show that she had taken the "path less traveled" by being a - journalist.
However, after one had been educated by the author on the context under which this poem was written, Frost's own mischievous caution to his audience, Thomas's strong reaction to it, and most of all the author's own perceptive questions about the poem (pg 234), one can't help but fall in love with it. Perhaps feeling a little snobbery too (now that I know it better than that journalist). But the rejoinder that came on page 261 was equally powerful, "Now all roads lead to France". Yes, now all roads lead to France, in Thomas's own words, he would be going to France.
In the epilogue, the author went back to describing those who in Thomas's circle and what happened to them during and after the war, much like how he described them at the beginning of the book in the Poetry Bookshop. Before that, he touched ever so softly on Thomas's own death when it came, never over-playing it, and one is left to feel sad, yet happy that "[h]e fell without a mark on his body."
A poet, and one who joined the army to fight a war, these are two ideas that I can never associate together. Yet in Thomas's case, and indeed those around him, this almost seemed like the only right thing to do. How did they, and in particular, Thomas come to this? It took another poet to tell us the story of this poet.
January 15, 2024
I expected a book of the World War I poetry of Edward Thomas. Instead, this is a biography, primarily of Edward Thomas) and also of his family, lovers, and literary friends, including Robert Frost. The content of the book could have been very interesting. However, the two main characters, Edward Thomas and Robert Frost are both depicted in such a way that I found both highly unlikeable. I'll label Thomas with some adjectives that I came away with: petulent, nasty, neglectful, selfish, critical, unpredictable, maudlin, distant, weak, and misguided. Robert Frost, whose poetry I grew up reading, is portrayed with very similar traits. He sounds like a domestic terror and a morose man. Interestingly, Frost and Thomas became friends in the UK and wrote to each other until Thomas' early death in a trench in France during WWI. I didn't care at all for Thomas.
I wasn't gripped by the storytelling either. Generally I love books about real life literary or art world people prior to 1950, especially set in the British Isles. The challenges of rural life as a poet could be quite fascinating but honestly it wasn't. Ive wanted to know more about the Poetry Bookshop and Ezra Pound. Both topics covered in this book. But I don't have any clearer picture in my mind about the Poetry Bookshop than I did before I wasted two weeks reading this book except that Edward Thomas was a highly-critical know-it-all who tore down his fellow-members whether or not they were friends.
The audiobook recording was all wrong. The reader, Joanna Giaquinta, has a strong American accent and at times, it sounds like she is sucking on a hardcandy while reading. Worse, is that she reads the entire book with a singsong. This is the story of a poor and depressive Welsh poet who struggles in every aspect of his British life and eventually finds fulfillment in the potential of dying for England in the War. To have a cheery and breathy American woman reading it was so completely wrong. Then when she read the poems, she read them with very odd and confusing emphasis. I'm sure the ghost of Edward Thomas was horrified as he eavesdropped. I've audiobooked other non-fiction books loaded with quotes. I've even audiobooked artbooks that have plates that show the artwork the writer references (usually included as an accompanying PDF). This book had no PDF of poems. Ms Giaquinta did not change inflection or voice between the narrative and the poems the writer used to emphasize a point. Thus, there were numerous points when I had no idea if we had drifted into a poem or if a poem had ended. The audiobook experience was probably one of the worst I've ever had, including computer-generated voices.
In addition to everything else I didn't love about this book the author, fell short in the research in my opinion. There were a number of stories he told but then just let the reader surmise the truth or validity of the possibility by what Thomas's or Frost's poems contained. He theorizes that Thomas had two potential love interests outside of his marriage, one that probably was never consumated, and the other which is more ambiguous. It seems that given the literary circle that these characters moved in, some child of one of the original people involved might have insight into those potential love stories. Even the relationships with his own children are left in the shadows.
I should have DnF'd this book for I knew after about 3 hours into it, it was a snooze. But I really didn't know anything about Edward Thomas and I thought I would at least appreciate his war poetry. Auden loved his poetry and so, since I am a fan of Auden, I thought for sure I would like Thomas' poems. I need to read them aloud myself, after Giaquinta's voice fades from memory. But from this book, they did not strike me as powerful, insightful, vividly drawn, nor moving.
There were a few things I did gain from reading this book. I have a better understanding about the English process of becoming a WWI soldier and how unlikely and unlucky it was to actually be sent to the action. I thought I knew about Robert Frost but in truth, I really was ignorant of his time, life and personality. This means I'll need to read a biography of Robert Frost. Also what I heard about The Poetry Bookshop has further intrigued me and I would like to read something else but a different author about it. It gets one star for all that.
I wasn't gripped by the storytelling either. Generally I love books about real life literary or art world people prior to 1950, especially set in the British Isles. The challenges of rural life as a poet could be quite fascinating but honestly it wasn't. Ive wanted to know more about the Poetry Bookshop and Ezra Pound. Both topics covered in this book. But I don't have any clearer picture in my mind about the Poetry Bookshop than I did before I wasted two weeks reading this book except that Edward Thomas was a highly-critical know-it-all who tore down his fellow-members whether or not they were friends.
The audiobook recording was all wrong. The reader, Joanna Giaquinta, has a strong American accent and at times, it sounds like she is sucking on a hardcandy while reading. Worse, is that she reads the entire book with a singsong. This is the story of a poor and depressive Welsh poet who struggles in every aspect of his British life and eventually finds fulfillment in the potential of dying for England in the War. To have a cheery and breathy American woman reading it was so completely wrong. Then when she read the poems, she read them with very odd and confusing emphasis. I'm sure the ghost of Edward Thomas was horrified as he eavesdropped. I've audiobooked other non-fiction books loaded with quotes. I've even audiobooked artbooks that have plates that show the artwork the writer references (usually included as an accompanying PDF). This book had no PDF of poems. Ms Giaquinta did not change inflection or voice between the narrative and the poems the writer used to emphasize a point. Thus, there were numerous points when I had no idea if we had drifted into a poem or if a poem had ended. The audiobook experience was probably one of the worst I've ever had, including computer-generated voices.
In addition to everything else I didn't love about this book the author, fell short in the research in my opinion. There were a number of stories he told but then just let the reader surmise the truth or validity of the possibility by what Thomas's or Frost's poems contained. He theorizes that Thomas had two potential love interests outside of his marriage, one that probably was never consumated, and the other which is more ambiguous. It seems that given the literary circle that these characters moved in, some child of one of the original people involved might have insight into those potential love stories. Even the relationships with his own children are left in the shadows.
I should have DnF'd this book for I knew after about 3 hours into it, it was a snooze. But I really didn't know anything about Edward Thomas and I thought I would at least appreciate his war poetry. Auden loved his poetry and so, since I am a fan of Auden, I thought for sure I would like Thomas' poems. I need to read them aloud myself, after Giaquinta's voice fades from memory. But from this book, they did not strike me as powerful, insightful, vividly drawn, nor moving.
There were a few things I did gain from reading this book. I have a better understanding about the English process of becoming a WWI soldier and how unlikely and unlucky it was to actually be sent to the action. I thought I knew about Robert Frost but in truth, I really was ignorant of his time, life and personality. This means I'll need to read a biography of Robert Frost. Also what I heard about The Poetry Bookshop has further intrigued me and I would like to read something else but a different author about it. It gets one star for all that.
March 23, 2025
Lent to me by a family friend - I hadn't heard of Thomas before (or at least can't remember ever knowing of him) but I was looking forward to reading another perspective on World War One and encountering new-to-me war writing. It turned out to be interesting to read a biography of a figure who is so unlikeable and whose poetry is so bland (despite the author's analyses attempting to argue otherwise), and I appreciate that Hollis doesn't shy away from describing Thomas's worst qualities alongside his literary and personal merits. The title suggests more of the book would be focused on Thomas's experience of World War One; even with this time being so short, it felt almost glossed over in the later chapters, especially compared to the rich detail in which the preceding years of the poet's life are discussed. The analysis of poetry is objectively excellent though, despite the poetry itself not being to my tastes.
March 17, 2018
An excellent work by Matthew Hollis - thank you Matthew!
Rather than simply repeating what many other Goodreads reviewers have put to articulately, I would just note that, personally, reading this biography has encouraged me to try and get back to writing poetry (procrastination having almost killed off my energy to do so), and also that in many ways I feel more sympathy for the children of Thomas and Frost, let alone their hapless worn wives!
I also think of the Welsh poet Herbert Williams' poem What Would Dylan be Writing!
Rather than simply repeating what many other Goodreads reviewers have put to articulately, I would just note that, personally, reading this biography has encouraged me to try and get back to writing poetry (procrastination having almost killed off my energy to do so), and also that in many ways I feel more sympathy for the children of Thomas and Frost, let alone their hapless worn wives!
I also think of the Welsh poet Herbert Williams' poem What Would Dylan be Writing!
May 13, 2024
Fantastic biography of Edward Thomas. It is very highly recommended. I look forward to reading Matthew Hollis' book on Eliot's 'The Wasteland'.
May 27, 2021
Tortured soul in prose becomes reborn poet
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 May 2021
This is an outstanding study of Edward Thomas in his last years as he developed from a tenacious writer of prose books - usually travel related commissions or nature books to his growth as a poet. Matthew Hollis, mirrors his subjects career in reverse, being a published poet who has written this dense and beautifully constructed prose biography of Thomas.
Hollis manages to produce fabulous prose descriptions of settings whilst adopting a risky, almost novelistic tone to the descriptions of relationships and Thomas’s perambulations from place to place at work and at leisure.
Thomas was an intense and driven man not always happy in familial company and sometimes not much liking himself - his strained family relationship with his wife and children comes across as sad and tragic - he seemed to want to be apart a lot. The crucial bromance with Robert Frost is movingly described as are encounters with the Georgian poets ; ( The doomed Brooke et al) and the likes of Ezra Pound and a seemingly annoying narky Yeats.
His realisation that he could reconstruct his prose into poetry is well coupled with his final and fatal decision to enlist for active service in World War 1. Indeed his Hamlet like indecision is broken by a fateful standoff with an over zealous gamekeeper who ejects Frost & Thomas from his masters land gun in hand. The consequent feeling of personal cowardice in not standing up to this man haunts Thomas and feeds a guilt that eventually makes him feel the need to prove himself at war.
His tragic almost inevitable demise just as his poems were collected and published fits the tragic war poets cliche that dominates cultural resonance about the war - But Hollis has produced a book cliche free, both moving and eloquent in its mission to prove Thomas as a poet whilst explaining his tortured psyche..... a fabulous read undercut by a haunting sadness as his road not taken eventually becomes his chosen nemesis.
A masterwork - highly recommended.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 May 2021
This is an outstanding study of Edward Thomas in his last years as he developed from a tenacious writer of prose books - usually travel related commissions or nature books to his growth as a poet. Matthew Hollis, mirrors his subjects career in reverse, being a published poet who has written this dense and beautifully constructed prose biography of Thomas.
Hollis manages to produce fabulous prose descriptions of settings whilst adopting a risky, almost novelistic tone to the descriptions of relationships and Thomas’s perambulations from place to place at work and at leisure.
Thomas was an intense and driven man not always happy in familial company and sometimes not much liking himself - his strained family relationship with his wife and children comes across as sad and tragic - he seemed to want to be apart a lot. The crucial bromance with Robert Frost is movingly described as are encounters with the Georgian poets ; ( The doomed Brooke et al) and the likes of Ezra Pound and a seemingly annoying narky Yeats.
His realisation that he could reconstruct his prose into poetry is well coupled with his final and fatal decision to enlist for active service in World War 1. Indeed his Hamlet like indecision is broken by a fateful standoff with an over zealous gamekeeper who ejects Frost & Thomas from his masters land gun in hand. The consequent feeling of personal cowardice in not standing up to this man haunts Thomas and feeds a guilt that eventually makes him feel the need to prove himself at war.
His tragic almost inevitable demise just as his poems were collected and published fits the tragic war poets cliche that dominates cultural resonance about the war - But Hollis has produced a book cliche free, both moving and eloquent in its mission to prove Thomas as a poet whilst explaining his tortured psyche..... a fabulous read undercut by a haunting sadness as his road not taken eventually becomes his chosen nemesis.
A masterwork - highly recommended.
August 28, 2012
This is my first review for Goodreads and I am still at the early stage of reading this book, but I am totally entranced. I'm not sure why. I am not a keen poetry reader and the man himself, Edward Thomas, is not the most appealing of people. I was drawn to it from reading Robert Mcfarlane's The Old Ways ( which is a must read in itself) since Thomas, the walker and poet, is the major inspiration for the book. The appeal probably lies in the (wrongly) romantic atmospheric appeal of Edwardian London and the story of a tortured mind. There is also the friendship of Thomas with Robert Frost which has yet to fully unravel in my progress through the book so far. More than anything though it is the initial setting for the biography in the opening of the first Poetry Bookshop in Bloomsbury by Herbert Munro in 1913 that catches the imagination. Whatever, this is a haunting biography. Reading it has also demonstrated the wonders of the Internet. The biographer, himself a poet, explains the two competing different schools of poetry of the time - the Imagists and the Georgians - and their contemporary publications of Des Imagistes and Poetry and Drama. Amazingly, a quick google search found PDF versions to download! Through them it is easy to be transport back to London in the year before the 'Great War'. PS A collection of Edward Thomas's poetry is available for a very reasonable price. My copy is on the Kindle. Maybe I will become a poetry lover!
November 18, 2012
Edward Thomas was a wonderful poet, and this is within a whisker or two of being a wonderful biography. Hollis is a poet himself, and his analysis and description of the creative process is excellent; as is his understanding of Thomas's complex personality. The story of the relationship between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas is well-known, but here it is subjected to intense scrutiny, with fascinating results. My only reservations (extremely pedantic, I know, but I mention them because they interfered with my enjoyment of the book) concern Hollis's tendency to get his verb tenses and conditions into a twist; and occasional phrases such as "the valley is bounded to the north by the ancient Malvern Hills" - why an Editor at Faber (Hollis's day job) should suddenly write like a contributor to an AA/Drive/Readers Digest Leisure Guide is puzzling. My pedantry aside, it is easy to see why this book won so much praise, being named by several critics as Biography of the Year. Not the least of its attributes is its ability to send the reader scurrying back to the poems. I am now going to forget my nit-picking, and agree with Robert Giddings: 'Now All Roads Lead to France tells a story so delicate, tragic and inevitable, and which contains examples of such searingly perfect poetry, that all I can say is that this is a beautiful book. Read it.'
January 19, 2013
A must-read. Even if you aren't well-versed in poetry or in the world of poetry, this book is interesting in its own merit. It records the transition from Romanticism into Modernism through Edward Thomas' literary career and entrance into poetry. His friendship with Frost as outlined by this book is reason enough to read. It's beautifully outlined by Hollis.
May 25, 2019
The book begins with a quote from Thomas's Light and Twilight:
and I rose up, and knew that I was tired, and continued my journey
The book begins with a separate page telling us right off how Edward Thomas died: The day before he died was a heavy bombardment. A shell fell two yards from where he stood and should have killed him. Instead it was a rare dud. The men would tease him that night about his lucky escape. One man said that a man with Thomas's luck would be safe wherever he went. The next morning was Easter Monday, the first of the Arras offensive. The infantry soldiers in the trenches fixed their bayonets and tightened their grips around their rifles. Thomas started late to the Observation Post as the bombardment began. The Allied assault was so immense that some Germans were captured half-dressed. Others fled barefoot through mud and snow. British troops sang and danced in what had just been No Man's Land. Edward Thomas left the dugout behind his post and leaned into the opening to fill his pipe. A shell passed so close to him that "the blast of air stopped his heart." He fell without a mark on his body.
I am not sure I fully understand how a man can die that way.
Thomas had been suicidal. Indeed, his whole life may be suicidal. He once wrote, "How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead." In the weeks before his suicide attempt, he wrote, "That is what I hate, the not being able to turn around in the grave & say It is over."
Here is a quatrain that shows the oblique way Thomas wrote about war:
In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)
BY EDWARD THOMAS
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
Thomas decided to seek a commission at the front, thus increasing the odds of dying. He wrote this:
I'm bound away for ever,
Away somewhere, away for ever.
At the Battle of the Somme, British artillery pounded German lines. But the German trenches were dug far deeper than expected. When thirteen divisions of the British army went over the top, enemy machine guns rose from their dugouts and mowed down 19,000 British soldiers who died and twice that number wounded.
We learn about all of the other soldier poets in this book as well. For example, Robert Graves had a shell fragment puncture his shoulder blade and pass out through his chest. His death was announced to his colonel, his parents were informed, and an obituary published in his local paper. But he had not died, but the physical injury kept him from further action.
This is also a book about a friendship with Robert Frost. Frost wrote, "My whole nature simply leaps at times to cross the ocean to see you for one good talk." Frost also made an offer, "What's mine is yours. Here are a house and forty odd acres of land you can think of as a home and a refuge when your war is over. We shall be waiting for you."
Thomas would light a bonfire and burn papers and letters.
It was Frost who wrote, "I have found a publisher for you in America." What a thrill that must have been.
Thomas mentions a plowman in one of his poems. A plowman is observed in the book. How do people keep on with their lives in such a war?
Robert Frost described the poetry of Thomas this way: "His poetry is so very brave--so unconsciously brave. He didn't think of it for a moment as war poetry, though that is what it is. It ought to be called Roads to France."
That title comes from this passage of Thomas's poetry:
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
In the last page of his war diary, Thomas wrote, "I never understood quite what was meant by God."
And in pencil after that, he wrote three lines:
Where any turn may lead to Heaven
Or any corner may hide Hell
Roads shining like river up hill after rain.
Robert Frost wrote to Thomas's wife in condolence: "I want to see him to tell him something. I want to tell him, what he think he liked to hear from me, that he was a poet."
and I rose up, and knew that I was tired, and continued my journey
The book begins with a separate page telling us right off how Edward Thomas died: The day before he died was a heavy bombardment. A shell fell two yards from where he stood and should have killed him. Instead it was a rare dud. The men would tease him that night about his lucky escape. One man said that a man with Thomas's luck would be safe wherever he went. The next morning was Easter Monday, the first of the Arras offensive. The infantry soldiers in the trenches fixed their bayonets and tightened their grips around their rifles. Thomas started late to the Observation Post as the bombardment began. The Allied assault was so immense that some Germans were captured half-dressed. Others fled barefoot through mud and snow. British troops sang and danced in what had just been No Man's Land. Edward Thomas left the dugout behind his post and leaned into the opening to fill his pipe. A shell passed so close to him that "the blast of air stopped his heart." He fell without a mark on his body.
I am not sure I fully understand how a man can die that way.
Thomas had been suicidal. Indeed, his whole life may be suicidal. He once wrote, "How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead." In the weeks before his suicide attempt, he wrote, "That is what I hate, the not being able to turn around in the grave & say It is over."
Here is a quatrain that shows the oblique way Thomas wrote about war:
In Memoriam (Easter, 1915)
BY EDWARD THOMAS
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
Thomas decided to seek a commission at the front, thus increasing the odds of dying. He wrote this:
I'm bound away for ever,
Away somewhere, away for ever.
At the Battle of the Somme, British artillery pounded German lines. But the German trenches were dug far deeper than expected. When thirteen divisions of the British army went over the top, enemy machine guns rose from their dugouts and mowed down 19,000 British soldiers who died and twice that number wounded.
We learn about all of the other soldier poets in this book as well. For example, Robert Graves had a shell fragment puncture his shoulder blade and pass out through his chest. His death was announced to his colonel, his parents were informed, and an obituary published in his local paper. But he had not died, but the physical injury kept him from further action.
This is also a book about a friendship with Robert Frost. Frost wrote, "My whole nature simply leaps at times to cross the ocean to see you for one good talk." Frost also made an offer, "What's mine is yours. Here are a house and forty odd acres of land you can think of as a home and a refuge when your war is over. We shall be waiting for you."
Thomas would light a bonfire and burn papers and letters.
It was Frost who wrote, "I have found a publisher for you in America." What a thrill that must have been.
Thomas mentions a plowman in one of his poems. A plowman is observed in the book. How do people keep on with their lives in such a war?
Robert Frost described the poetry of Thomas this way: "His poetry is so very brave--so unconsciously brave. He didn't think of it for a moment as war poetry, though that is what it is. It ought to be called Roads to France."
That title comes from this passage of Thomas's poetry:
Now all roads lead to France
And heavy is the tread
Of the living; but the dead
Returning lightly dance:
In the last page of his war diary, Thomas wrote, "I never understood quite what was meant by God."
And in pencil after that, he wrote three lines:
Where any turn may lead to Heaven
Or any corner may hide Hell
Roads shining like river up hill after rain.
Robert Frost wrote to Thomas's wife in condolence: "I want to see him to tell him something. I want to tell him, what he think he liked to hear from me, that he was a poet."
June 26, 2021
Perhaps one of the divining marks of a good biographer is that one grieves
at the end, even knowing that the subject is long since dead. What Matthew Hollis
creates for us in this biography is a throughway, a walk really, along the last paths
of Edward Thomas, who wouldn't know his poetic power in his own lifetime, who would
question his own validity to foot one word in front of the other, to trace it back into
woods and trenches and depressions and wring each letter out and lay them each down again.
I have asked myself, as I read biographies and poetry, who does this poet read, and where and how deep does this poet see. Upon recently finishing Jonathan Blunk's James Write: A Life in Poetry, I was alerted again to a poet who held Edward Thomas in the highest regard. And so I went walking with Wright, and gladly, and gratefully, into the world of Edward Thomas. It is a relief to know that I can let my guard slip a little, that the writer is being honest and not seeking apologies, but rather just that we see the human beneath. We owe our poets this. And more. We would want the same.
at the end, even knowing that the subject is long since dead. What Matthew Hollis
creates for us in this biography is a throughway, a walk really, along the last paths
of Edward Thomas, who wouldn't know his poetic power in his own lifetime, who would
question his own validity to foot one word in front of the other, to trace it back into
woods and trenches and depressions and wring each letter out and lay them each down again.
I have asked myself, as I read biographies and poetry, who does this poet read, and where and how deep does this poet see. Upon recently finishing Jonathan Blunk's James Write: A Life in Poetry, I was alerted again to a poet who held Edward Thomas in the highest regard. And so I went walking with Wright, and gladly, and gratefully, into the world of Edward Thomas. It is a relief to know that I can let my guard slip a little, that the writer is being honest and not seeking apologies, but rather just that we see the human beneath. We owe our poets this. And more. We would want the same.
November 5, 2023
A meticulously researched and detailed biography of the last four years of the life of the poet Edward Thomas. Edward Thomas was killed at the battle of Arras on Easter Monday 1917. He only started writing poetry three years before but is now considered one of the major first world war poets although none of his poems directly addresses the war. This biography is inspired and moving, surprisingly so as the subject, at the start appears to be a most unsympathetic character. He is self obsessed, depressive and selfish and behaves appallingly to his wife and children. His pivotal friendship with the American poet Robert Frost is examined in detail as are his friendships with Eleanor Farjeon and Edna Clarke Hall who were probably both in love with him and with whom he was certainly emotionally close if not more. His sense of fate and foreboding as to his destiny is masterfully conveyed and his death from catastrophic heart failure due to the close proximity of a passing shell whilst at the front line in the trenches is a haunting climax. There are also detailed analyses of his and Frost’s poetry which make you revisit them anew.
May 6, 2018
A very scholarly work which details, in particular the years leading up to Edward Thomas in WWI.
His close friendship with Robert Frost and the other Dymock poets is well described and the cast of major poets of that generation appear at some point, including W.B. Yeats.
His relationship with his wife Helen and his children was difficult to understand as he seemed to spend more time living away from them than with them. The fact that he married secretly whilst still at Oxford and had a child almost immediately was probably a factor but not altogether clear what the relationship was like. The enlistment in the Artists Rifles and deployment to France is also very well described and the awfulness of events there are made clear.
His close friendship with Robert Frost and the other Dymock poets is well described and the cast of major poets of that generation appear at some point, including W.B. Yeats.
His relationship with his wife Helen and his children was difficult to understand as he seemed to spend more time living away from them than with them. The fact that he married secretly whilst still at Oxford and had a child almost immediately was probably a factor but not altogether clear what the relationship was like. The enlistment in the Artists Rifles and deployment to France is also very well described and the awfulness of events there are made clear.
November 13, 2018
Tato kniha mi velmi pomohla Thomase přiblížit a porozumět tomu proč psal to co psal, proč zrovna tím či oním způsobem a odkud to vše vycházelo. Myslím ovšem, že kniha se hodí jen pro ty, kdo se o něj doopravdy zajímají - pochybuji že člověk, který o něm nikdy předtím neslyšel (já cca před třemi týdny), by jí mohl shledat jako zajímavou. Není to podle mě biografie, která by se snažila být čtivá pro co nejširší publikum.
October 20, 2023
I enjoyed this book and how the author brought the poet Edward Thomas and his poetic journey to life. Despite having very little knowledge of poetry and never having heard of Edward Thomas, I found myself drawn in and captured by the story of this conflicted man with his keen observational skills and strong connection to nature. And along the way I gained a lot of insight into the poetry scene in pre-First World War England.
December 23, 2016
If you don't like poetry then this is not the book for you. There is a lot of technical stuff perhaps a bit too much for general appeal. And this applies to the poems themselves too.
I must admit for a prize winning book I was disappointed. Thomas comes across as an uncharismatic, humourless character and there is little evidence of the close friendship with Frost ...more like a pen pal.
I must admit for a prize winning book I was disappointed. Thomas comes across as an uncharismatic, humourless character and there is little evidence of the close friendship with Frost ...more like a pen pal.
Read
October 3, 2025Fantastic
A superbly engaging and studious biography of a complex man and the circumstances surrounding him. Throw in wonderful lines of poetry explained informatively and you have a totally gripping read. I could not put the book down and enjoyed it so much as well as being inspired by it
A superbly engaging and studious biography of a complex man and the circumstances surrounding him. Throw in wonderful lines of poetry explained informatively and you have a totally gripping read. I could not put the book down and enjoyed it so much as well as being inspired by it
December 21, 2022
Edward Thomas was quite the humbug, but his depth (probably why he was such a humbug) was infinite. He felt so much and, in this archive of the last years of his life, one feels his ‘pain’ in reading. A somewhat sad story.
December 28, 2018
Detailed life of Edward Thomas. Very interesting but I felt the end was rushed. I seem to remember that he was killed by the blast of a shell which stopped his heart, but was physically unscathed.
September 1, 2019
Best parts cover Thomas’s compositions and editing, giving the illusion of watching him draft the poem in real time. Pity Hollis’s prose doesn’t match Thomas’s verse for fluid ease and clarity.
October 19, 2020
This book was a real grind and I could only read in very small bites. Having said that, as it was about an intense and suicidal depressive you can't expect it to be a bundle of laughs.
February 20, 2023
I was really rather looking forward to reading this book however it became like wading through treacle at times, which was frustrating.
The book dealt much more with Edward Thomas relationships be they with men or women who both fell in love with him.
It didn’t explain his demons which appear to have caste a veil of sadness on everything he did, only on joining the army did he perhaps find solace in teaching others to read and understand maps.
Why was he so hard on his poor long suffering wife Helen, who loved him so very deeply.
His death in France was almost a non event little mention in the book ie where or how it occurred.
All in all a sad book with great potential.
The book dealt much more with Edward Thomas relationships be they with men or women who both fell in love with him.
It didn’t explain his demons which appear to have caste a veil of sadness on everything he did, only on joining the army did he perhaps find solace in teaching others to read and understand maps.
Why was he so hard on his poor long suffering wife Helen, who loved him so very deeply.
His death in France was almost a non event little mention in the book ie where or how it occurred.
All in all a sad book with great potential.
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