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Under Storm's Wing
Under Storm's Wing collects all that Helen Thomas (1877-1967) wrote about the poet Edward Thomas (1878-1917): the celebrated volumes As It Was and World Without End, her letters to Edward, and separate memoirs of her meetings with W.H. Davies, D.H.Lawrence, Ivor Gurney, Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost and W.H.Hudson. The book has been assembled by Myfanwy, Edward's and Helen's youngest daughter. She includes her own enchanted account of childhood with her father, and the tragedy of his death at the Battle of Arras in 1917. She adds an appendix of six letters from Robert Frost to Edward Thomas. Helen wrote As It Was, the story of her courtship and early marriage, shortly after Edward's death, and World Without End a few years later. In the original editions and later reprints fictitious names were used for the protagonists. In this edition the actual names are restored. The book provides a brilliant, lasting evocation of one of Britain's best-loved poets.
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 27, 2012
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About the author
Helen Thomas
8 booksHelen Berenice Thomas, née Noble, was the daughter of the journalist James Ashcroft Noble. She was born in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, in 1877 but grew up in London. She met the poet Edward Thomas in 1894 and married him in 1899, while he was still an undergraduate student at Oxford University. They had three children before he was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917.
Helen wrote her first memoir of their life together, As It Was, in 1926, and followed it with World Without End in 1931. She died in Berkshire in 1967.
Helen wrote her first memoir of their life together, As It Was, in 1926, and followed it with World Without End in 1931. She died in Berkshire in 1967.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 1, 2022
Helen Thomas’ Under Storm’s Wing is one of those books which I have wanted to read for years, but which has proved difficult to get hold of; in this case, copies were unaffordable. I finally managed to find a secondhand edition of the Carcanet publication for less than £10, which may well be my bargain of the year.
Under Storm’s Wing is a veritable treasure trove. It brings together two volumes of memoir – As It Was, and World Without End – Helen’s letters, written between 1896 and 1917, A Remembered Harvest, and a selection of recollections of her youngest daughter Myfanwy. Helen's husband, Edward Thomas, is one of my favourite poets, and whilst I knew a little about Helen before I picked this up, I was gratified that it was highly illuminating.
As It Was (1926) takes as its focus Helen and Edward’s early relationship and marriage, and was written soon after he was killed during the First World War at the Battle of Arras, France, in 1917. The first of her memoirs ends with the birth of their first son, Merfyn. World Without End was written several years afterwards, in 1931. Helen’s second memoir covers a wider span of time than her first.
As It Was begins with Helen speaking expansively about her childhood: ‘Our life was very happy, very social, very united. We were unconventional, though in no startling way – just informal and unselfconscious.’ She then reveals when she first met Edward, after her literary reviewer father is asked to read some of his work, and invites him to the house. Helen describes her first meeting with the ‘shy and constrained’ Edward, noticing that his ‘eyes were grey and dreamy and meditative, but fearless and steady, and as if trying to pierce the truth itself. It was a most striking face, recalling a portrait of Shelley in its sensitive, melancholy beauty.’
Helen captures similarly lovely moments throughout. She writes, for instance: ‘I remember in that first walk how we scrambled about in a little roadside copse. It must have been winter or early spring, for the trees were bare, and Edward showed me many old nests, telling me the names of the birds which had made them, and pointing out to me their special characteristics. Later on he brought me as a present a most beautifully compact, moss-covered nest of a chaffinch, which I could hardly believe was the work of a bird, and all my wonder pleased and amused him in his grave way.’ She goes on: ‘And all his knowledge of everything we saw, and all his intimacy – everything lifted me at once into a new world.’
Throughout, I admired Helen’s honesty. She shows herself as a bold and daring young woman. She is revealing about her innermost self, about the intimacies she shared with Edward, and her naïve ideas regarding sex and desire. She recalls, with vivid clarity: ‘I had often cried bitterly in the thought that no man could ever love me, and that my longing for children would never be satisfied. I had so persuaded myself of this that it never entered my mind as a possibility until that moment when Edward took my hand; and even then I did not consciously think of love; all I felt was an unrest, a fear, a thrill, perhaps also a hope.’
The depictions here regarding Edward’s ever-present struggles with mental health are revealing. Helen tells us: ‘There were many dark periods when we were here [living on a farm in the Weald of Kent], many days of silence and wretchedness and separation, for sometimes in these moods Edward would stride away, perhaps for days, wrestling with the devil that tormented his spirit.’
Helen’s writing is beautiful, filled with glorious and expansive descriptions. On their honeymoon spent in Wiltshire, she reflects: ‘We washed in rain-water… Outside the owls hooted about the cottage, and bats twittered, and starlings stirred in the thatch. No other sound was to be heard, no trams, no people, no traffic, nothing but the sounds that do not spoil silence, but rather deepen it, and a little breeze wandering through the wood, and a leaf flapping against our window.’
Myfanwy’s contribution is an excerpt from her longer memoir, One of These Fine Days. Myfanwy also contributed the preface to this volume, which was first collected together in 1988. She recollects that her mother wrote both volumes of her memoir ‘as therapy, to try to rouse [her] from the terrible lethargy and desolation which followed Edward’s death…’.
Under Storm’s Wing is a wonderful anthology, and I found it to be far more open than I would expect of a book written during this period. There is much written about the natural world, and Helen’s discovery of the countryside after spending her entire childhood in towns and cities. Under Storm’s Wing is a touching, moving, and thoughtful collection, and is a book to really linger over.
Under Storm’s Wing is a veritable treasure trove. It brings together two volumes of memoir – As It Was, and World Without End – Helen’s letters, written between 1896 and 1917, A Remembered Harvest, and a selection of recollections of her youngest daughter Myfanwy. Helen's husband, Edward Thomas, is one of my favourite poets, and whilst I knew a little about Helen before I picked this up, I was gratified that it was highly illuminating.
As It Was (1926) takes as its focus Helen and Edward’s early relationship and marriage, and was written soon after he was killed during the First World War at the Battle of Arras, France, in 1917. The first of her memoirs ends with the birth of their first son, Merfyn. World Without End was written several years afterwards, in 1931. Helen’s second memoir covers a wider span of time than her first.
As It Was begins with Helen speaking expansively about her childhood: ‘Our life was very happy, very social, very united. We were unconventional, though in no startling way – just informal and unselfconscious.’ She then reveals when she first met Edward, after her literary reviewer father is asked to read some of his work, and invites him to the house. Helen describes her first meeting with the ‘shy and constrained’ Edward, noticing that his ‘eyes were grey and dreamy and meditative, but fearless and steady, and as if trying to pierce the truth itself. It was a most striking face, recalling a portrait of Shelley in its sensitive, melancholy beauty.’
Helen captures similarly lovely moments throughout. She writes, for instance: ‘I remember in that first walk how we scrambled about in a little roadside copse. It must have been winter or early spring, for the trees were bare, and Edward showed me many old nests, telling me the names of the birds which had made them, and pointing out to me their special characteristics. Later on he brought me as a present a most beautifully compact, moss-covered nest of a chaffinch, which I could hardly believe was the work of a bird, and all my wonder pleased and amused him in his grave way.’ She goes on: ‘And all his knowledge of everything we saw, and all his intimacy – everything lifted me at once into a new world.’
Throughout, I admired Helen’s honesty. She shows herself as a bold and daring young woman. She is revealing about her innermost self, about the intimacies she shared with Edward, and her naïve ideas regarding sex and desire. She recalls, with vivid clarity: ‘I had often cried bitterly in the thought that no man could ever love me, and that my longing for children would never be satisfied. I had so persuaded myself of this that it never entered my mind as a possibility until that moment when Edward took my hand; and even then I did not consciously think of love; all I felt was an unrest, a fear, a thrill, perhaps also a hope.’
The depictions here regarding Edward’s ever-present struggles with mental health are revealing. Helen tells us: ‘There were many dark periods when we were here [living on a farm in the Weald of Kent], many days of silence and wretchedness and separation, for sometimes in these moods Edward would stride away, perhaps for days, wrestling with the devil that tormented his spirit.’
Helen’s writing is beautiful, filled with glorious and expansive descriptions. On their honeymoon spent in Wiltshire, she reflects: ‘We washed in rain-water… Outside the owls hooted about the cottage, and bats twittered, and starlings stirred in the thatch. No other sound was to be heard, no trams, no people, no traffic, nothing but the sounds that do not spoil silence, but rather deepen it, and a little breeze wandering through the wood, and a leaf flapping against our window.’
Myfanwy’s contribution is an excerpt from her longer memoir, One of These Fine Days. Myfanwy also contributed the preface to this volume, which was first collected together in 1988. She recollects that her mother wrote both volumes of her memoir ‘as therapy, to try to rouse [her] from the terrible lethargy and desolation which followed Edward’s death…’.
Under Storm’s Wing is a wonderful anthology, and I found it to be far more open than I would expect of a book written during this period. There is much written about the natural world, and Helen’s discovery of the countryside after spending her entire childhood in towns and cities. Under Storm’s Wing is a touching, moving, and thoughtful collection, and is a book to really linger over.
June 29, 2017
Really 3.5 stars.
February 24, 2013
It may still only be February, but I think it is possible that I have just read a book that is almost certainly going to end up on my top books of 2013 list. Under Storm’s Wing contains both volumes of memoir by Helen Thomas, ‘As it was’ and ‘World without End’, further memoirs of her meeting with people such as DH Lawrence, Robert Frost and W H Davies, some memoirs of her youngest daughter Myfanwy Thomas, some of Helen Thomas’s letters to friends, as well as Robert Frost’s letters to Edward Thomas.
I originally bought a cheap old 1930’s edition of Helen Thomas’s first volume of memoirs ‘As it was’. Realising that the second volume was quite expensive second hand, and that this edition published with further memoirs and letters was available I decided I would buy it as well. I am so glad that I did. I suspect I cannot do justice to the beauty of this book, the poignancy and beauty of the writing is quite remarkable – Helen Thomas emerges as a wonderful woman, warm, intelligent and full of the understanding needed to live with the difficult and demanding man who was the love of her life.
Helen Thomas (1877 – 1967) became the wife of writer and poet Edward Thomas (1878 -1917) who is now numbered among the war poets of World War I. Thomas wrote all of his poetry during the last two years of his life. When World War I broke out, Edward Thomas was thirty six, he would not have had to enlist and yet he did – and in 1917 was killed at the battle of Arras. In 1922 Helen Thomas published the first volume of her memoirs ‘As it was’ which recounts beautifully and with breath-taking honesty the story of her and Edward’s courtship and the first years of their marriage. Helen was a young woman ahead of her time, absolutely sure of her love for Edward, fully confident of the rightness of their relationship, she enters into a sexual relationship with him before they are married. Believing in the idea of free love, Helen has to be persuaded by her bohemian friends that marriage to Edward is the only thing she can do when she falls pregnant. Edward Thomas was a man who loved to walk, walking mile upon mile – his love of the open air and English countryside was as much a part of him as his writing. He understood the countryside in a way few people do, and Helen shared this love. Together they walked many miles, Helen’s arm through his, her hand in his pocket. Edward Thomas suffered from almost crippling depression, and in the second volume of Helen Thomas’s memoirs ‘World without End’ published a few years after the first volume, we see how this illness impacted terribly upon their marriage. Helen however understood Edward and knew how to deal with his darker moods with tact and love.
“In an unconscious way as I grew older I came to realise that everything that is part of life is inevitable to it, and must therefore be good. I could not be borne high upon the crest of ecstasy and joy unless I also knew the dreadful depths of the trough of the great waves of life. I could not be irradiated by such love without being swept by the shadow of despair. The rich teeming earth from which all beauty comes is fed with decay; out of the sweat and labour of men grows the corn. We are born to die; if death were not, life would not be either. Pain and weakness and evil, as well as strength and passion and health, are part of the beautiful pattern of life, and as I grew up I learned that life is richer and fuller and finer the more you can understand, not only in your brain and intellect but in your very being, that you must accept it all; without bitterness the agony, without complacency the joy.”
Three children are born to the Thomas’s and they have to move house several times, they struggle with poverty and with Edward’s depression, yet through it all, what comes across so wonderfully through Helen Thomas’s writing is the absolute togetherness of this couple. Edward Thomas making his living as an essay writer and critic, he occasionally has to go away to work, and during these times Thomas makes friends with other writers, many of them now very big names. Among his friends were Robert Frost and Arthur Ransome and six of Robert Frost’s letters to Edward Thomas are published in the appendix of this edition. I don’t think I shall ever forget Helen Thomas’s account of Christmas of 1916, the last that Edward and Helen have together, before the heartbreak of Edward’s departure back to the front, from where of course he never returned.
I originally bought a cheap old 1930’s edition of Helen Thomas’s first volume of memoirs ‘As it was’. Realising that the second volume was quite expensive second hand, and that this edition published with further memoirs and letters was available I decided I would buy it as well. I am so glad that I did. I suspect I cannot do justice to the beauty of this book, the poignancy and beauty of the writing is quite remarkable – Helen Thomas emerges as a wonderful woman, warm, intelligent and full of the understanding needed to live with the difficult and demanding man who was the love of her life.
Helen Thomas (1877 – 1967) became the wife of writer and poet Edward Thomas (1878 -1917) who is now numbered among the war poets of World War I. Thomas wrote all of his poetry during the last two years of his life. When World War I broke out, Edward Thomas was thirty six, he would not have had to enlist and yet he did – and in 1917 was killed at the battle of Arras. In 1922 Helen Thomas published the first volume of her memoirs ‘As it was’ which recounts beautifully and with breath-taking honesty the story of her and Edward’s courtship and the first years of their marriage. Helen was a young woman ahead of her time, absolutely sure of her love for Edward, fully confident of the rightness of their relationship, she enters into a sexual relationship with him before they are married. Believing in the idea of free love, Helen has to be persuaded by her bohemian friends that marriage to Edward is the only thing she can do when she falls pregnant. Edward Thomas was a man who loved to walk, walking mile upon mile – his love of the open air and English countryside was as much a part of him as his writing. He understood the countryside in a way few people do, and Helen shared this love. Together they walked many miles, Helen’s arm through his, her hand in his pocket. Edward Thomas suffered from almost crippling depression, and in the second volume of Helen Thomas’s memoirs ‘World without End’ published a few years after the first volume, we see how this illness impacted terribly upon their marriage. Helen however understood Edward and knew how to deal with his darker moods with tact and love.
“In an unconscious way as I grew older I came to realise that everything that is part of life is inevitable to it, and must therefore be good. I could not be borne high upon the crest of ecstasy and joy unless I also knew the dreadful depths of the trough of the great waves of life. I could not be irradiated by such love without being swept by the shadow of despair. The rich teeming earth from which all beauty comes is fed with decay; out of the sweat and labour of men grows the corn. We are born to die; if death were not, life would not be either. Pain and weakness and evil, as well as strength and passion and health, are part of the beautiful pattern of life, and as I grew up I learned that life is richer and fuller and finer the more you can understand, not only in your brain and intellect but in your very being, that you must accept it all; without bitterness the agony, without complacency the joy.”
Three children are born to the Thomas’s and they have to move house several times, they struggle with poverty and with Edward’s depression, yet through it all, what comes across so wonderfully through Helen Thomas’s writing is the absolute togetherness of this couple. Edward Thomas making his living as an essay writer and critic, he occasionally has to go away to work, and during these times Thomas makes friends with other writers, many of them now very big names. Among his friends were Robert Frost and Arthur Ransome and six of Robert Frost’s letters to Edward Thomas are published in the appendix of this edition. I don’t think I shall ever forget Helen Thomas’s account of Christmas of 1916, the last that Edward and Helen have together, before the heartbreak of Edward’s departure back to the front, from where of course he never returned.
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June 12, 2013There's a sub genre of literature, writings by partners of famous people, even biographies of partners of famous people.
I found this almost embarrassing to read and skip read a great deal. I've read that this was written as an act of catharsis, without publication in mind, and perhaps this is true. In which case it should have remained unpublished. While I understand her desire to reclaim her husband's memory, and relive their life together, it's far too personal, too detailed, to be a comfortable read. I felt like I was being invited to be a voyeur during their courtship.
It's a mine of information, her dealings with Ivor Gurney after the war, meetings with other poets, are all recorded.
if this was a book about Helen's love for Billy Bloggs would it have been published? Certainly not on the strength of her prose.
I found this almost embarrassing to read and skip read a great deal. I've read that this was written as an act of catharsis, without publication in mind, and perhaps this is true. In which case it should have remained unpublished. While I understand her desire to reclaim her husband's memory, and relive their life together, it's far too personal, too detailed, to be a comfortable read. I felt like I was being invited to be a voyeur during their courtship.
It's a mine of information, her dealings with Ivor Gurney after the war, meetings with other poets, are all recorded.
if this was a book about Helen's love for Billy Bloggs would it have been published? Certainly not on the strength of her prose.
November 11, 2020
Spirit of poetry
This is a beautiful book, the poetry takes on new depth after reading the account s of both Helen, wife, and daughter Myfanwy, both beautifully written. Helen's is truly a love story of extraordinary open heartedness tinged always with the heartbreak of his sometimes cruelty - not physical -stemming from his depression, and of his untimely death. His muse was first and foremost Mother Nature but in Helen was the coolness of spirit that one finds so readily in his verse.
This is a beautiful book, the poetry takes on new depth after reading the account s of both Helen, wife, and daughter Myfanwy, both beautifully written. Helen's is truly a love story of extraordinary open heartedness tinged always with the heartbreak of his sometimes cruelty - not physical -stemming from his depression, and of his untimely death. His muse was first and foremost Mother Nature but in Helen was the coolness of spirit that one finds so readily in his verse.
November 30, 2018
surprinsingly modern open and incredibly open and candid.
Want to read
April 27, 2010WHY: memoirs of the wife of poet Edward Thomas. Wanted to read based on this review: http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/2...
February 22, 2010
Moving and surprisingly frank.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews