Edward Thomas

by Edward Thomas, J.L. Carr (Collected by)

Edward Thomas wrote most of his poems during active service in World War 1 - poems which search for the true self, and affirm the oneness of all experience.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, 20th Century

16 pages, Pocket Book

First published October 1, 1997

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Philip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914. He enlisted in the army in 1915, and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.

His Works:

Poetry collections:

Six Poems, under pseudonym Edward Eastaway, Pear Tree Press, 1916.
Poems, Holt, 1917.
Last Poems, Selwyn & Blount, 1918.
Collected Poems, Selwyn & Blount, 1920.
Two Poems, Ingpen & Grant, 1927.
The Poems of Edward Thomas, R. George Thomas (ed), Oxford University Press, 1978
Poemoj (Esperanto translation), Kris Long (ed & pub), Burleigh Print, Bracknell, Berks, 1979.
Edward Thomas: A Mirror of England, Elaine Wilson (ed), Paul & Co., 1985.
The Poems of Edward Thomas, Peter Sacks (ed), Handsel Books, 2003.
The Annotated Collected Poems, Edna Longley (ed), Bloodaxe Books, 2008.

Fiction:

The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans (novel), 1913

Essay collections:

Horae Solitariae, Dutton, 1902.
Oxford, A & C Black, 1903.
Beautiful Wales, Black, 1905.
The Heart of England, Dutton, 1906.
The South Country, Dutton, 1906 (reissued by Tuttle, 1993).
Rest and Unrest, Dutton, 1910.
Light and Twilight, Duckworth, 1911.
The Last Sheaf, Cape, 1928.

Reviews

[Mary Soon Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short collection of poetry by Edward Thomas, edited by William Cooke. Thomas was a British writer who died in 1917 after volunteering to serve in World War I. He spent most of his working life writing prose, but turned to poetry in 1914, inspired by a friendship with Robert Frost. I find it very hard to be objective about his poetry, because one of his poems ("Adlestrop") was among the first I learned by heart. I loved it then. I still love it. I consider it almost perfect.

In reading this collection, I marked 14 of the poems as ones that stood out to me, with "Adlestrop" and "As the Team's Head-Brass" currently my favorites. But many of these poems were new to me, and I've found that when I like a poem, re-reading it often makes me like it better still. So in a year or two or three, I may have other favorites. Reading the book made me sad, because Thomas seems to often have been unhappy, and because he died too young, and because he had so few years to write poetry.

Here is a 17-word extract from his poem "Words," in which he is speaking about words themselves and about being a poet:

But though older far
Than oldest yew, -
As our hills are, old, -
Worn new
Again and again:

About my book reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the saddest collection of poetry on my shelf. Wonderful.

[Kier Scrivener · Rating 4 out of 5]

His work is an exploration of World War I, the one I found the most haunting was The Cherry Tree which laments that no one or place is untouched and no one can wed and This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong, which speaks about how similar the German and English sides truly are.