Edward Thomas

Philip Edward Thomas was born on 3rd March 1878 in Lambeth, London. His father was a staff clerk with the Board of Trade. Edward was the oldest of six boys. He was never happier than in his school holidays spent with his aunt or grandmother in Swindon and it was there that he discovered his lifelong passion for the countryside, country people and country pursuits.
His father introduced him to writers such as Isaac Walton and Richard Jefferies, and when he was fifteen he began to read poetry for pleasure. He attended St. Paul's School, Hammersmith but the fact that most of the other boys came from more prosperous backgrounds than his own did little to dispel his natural shyness. He began writing seriously, in the manner of Richard Jefferies, and found a supporter in James Ashcroft Noble, a fifty-year-old journalist and author. On leaving St. Paul's in 1895 he went on to Oxford, after two years supposedly studying for the Civil Service examination, but actually writing a book of his own, “The Woodland Life (1897)”. This was dedicated to Noble, who had died the previous year.
Edward Thomas left Oxford with a second class degree and, having secretly married Noble’s daughter Helen and with a new-born son, settled into slum lodgings in Earlsfield.
He tried to earn a living by reviewing and literary journalism but work was hard to find and poorly paid. Unable to resist the lure of the country, in 1901 the Thomases moved to Kent but their conditions was actually worsened when Helen found she was again pregnant.
By now he was reviewing up to fifteen books a week. A heavy load but one that did conscientiously and with discernment. Thomas supplemented the meagre income that brought him by selling the books he had been given to review and by writing books of his own. He published thirty between 1897 and 1917, and also edited another sixteen anthologies. He did everything in a rush but not at the expense of quality
Thomas’ great gift as a literary critic was shown to best advantage in his reviewing of poetry and he was one of the first to acclaim new writers such as W. H. Davies, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound. When he came up to London, which he did regularly in search of more work, he met many of the leading writers of the day: Edward Garnett, Hilaire Belloc, John Masefield, Joseph Conrad, Walter de la Mare, Rupert Brooke, and D. H. Lawrence.
Though he regarded poetry as the highest form of literature and had been reviewing it for years he appears to have made little serious attempt at writing any himself until 1914. Then poems suddenly began to pour from his pen: 'Up in the Wind', 'November', 'March', 'Old Man', and 'The Sign-Post' were written in 4 days between 3 and 7 December, and at least five more before the end of the month. He sprained his ankle badly on New Year’s Day 1915 and was an invalid for the next three months but he made good use of the time with an amazing poetic outpouring.
At this time he considered emigrating to America, where his friend Robert Frost had offered to find him work, but decidedhe should join up instead. In July 1915 at the age of 37 and considerably older than most of the other recruits he enlisted in the Artists' Rifles. This greater maturity was soon recognized by promotion to lance-corporal. Even the hectic pace of a recruit’s training did not stop him writing and on of his best poems “Rain” was written at this time.
Although his outpouring coincides with the beginnings of the First World War he nevertheless still managed to convey his love of the English countryside. His awareness of the natural world, its richness and beauty was intensified by the awareness of impending doom and the possibility of death—his own and others.
In January 1917 Thomas the countryman was called to the Front and, on 9 February he reached Arras. Soon after, on Easter Monday, the Battle of Arras began and Thomas was killed. Just a few days before three of his poems had been accepted by the magazine Poetry and the Times Literary Supplement printed an enthusiastic review of his contribution to An Annual of New Poetry.
[His poems were originally published under the pseudonym Edward Eastaway.]