Edward Thomas

The selected poems and prose writings of Edward Thomas, with a Foreword from Robert Macfarlane, author of The Old Ways'I have come to the borders of sleep, The unfathomable deepForest where all must loseTheir way, however straight,Or winding, soon or late;They cannot choose.'Fired by his abiding love of the English landscape, the poetry of Edward Thomas is some of the most astonishing of the twentieth century. A journalist, essayist and critic for many years, he was encouraged to write verse by his friend Robert Frost. He produced a late outburst of poetry of extraordinary beauty and mystery about the subjects closest to his heart: rural England and its inhabitants, landscape, atmosphere, transience, endurance and death. By 1917, when he was killed on the Western Front, he had earned his place as one of England's most valued poets. This selection brings together his finest verse with his most vivid prose writings on the countryside.'The father of us all' Ted Hughes Edited by David Wright With a Foreword by Robert Macfarlane, taken from The Old Ways

When Edward Thomas was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917 his poems were largely unpublished. But in the years since his death, his work has come to be cherished for its rare, sustained vision of the natural world and as 'a mirror of England' (Walter de la Mare). This edition, drawn from Thomas's manuscripts and typescripts as well as from his published works, offers an accessible introduction to this most resonant - and relevant - of poets.'In his lifetime, he was known and loved by a very, loving few. Now, since his death, he is known and loved by very many, and yearly this is more so. There is in his poems an unassumingly profound sense of permanence. A war came and ditched him, but his poems stay with no other wounds than those which caused them.' Dylan Thomas 'A very fine poet. And a poet all in his own right. The accent is absolutely his own.' Robert Frost'The one hundred and forty poems he wrote in the last two years of his life are a miracle. I can think of no body of work in English that is more mysterious.' Michael Longley

The definitive collection of Edward Thomas's poetic oeuvre.

Edward Thomas, professional author and critic, was thirty-nine when he was killed in the Arras offensive on Easter Day, 1917. Six months later his first collection of poems was published and his literary reputation secured. These Selected Letters present a uniquely vivid portrait of Thomas's life, from his time as an undergraduate at Oxford through to his final days at the Front. Chosen from more than 2,000 extant letters from Thomas to his family and literary friends - including Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare, and Eleanor Farjeon - the selection traces his struggle to establish himself as a writer, his long and successful fight against depression, and, amid the strain of a marriage which sometimes brought much agony, the strength of his love for his wife Helen. The letters, which formed a key source for R George Thomas's highly praised biography of a poet, help substantiate the editor's belief that despite Thomas's immense prose output and the late flowering of his verse in 1914-1916, it was nevertheless the name and nature of poetry that was Edward Thomas's dominant lifelong concern.

In The Icknield Way, originally published in 1913, Edward Thomas walks one of the great ancient footpaths of England, The Icknield Way, which runs from Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire to Suffolk, and connects to the Great Ridgeway, and has a claim to be one of Britain's oldest roads. In startling and evocative prose, Thomas recounts the history of the path through the ages, tells us how it was established, the people who have used it and takes us on a journey through time and place. One of Thomas' great prose works, republished alongside Little Toller's editions of The South Country and In Pursuit of Spring.

Useat klassikkokirjailijat ovat kirjoittaneet ylistyksiä kävelylle. Tässä valikoimassa niitä tarjoilevat: Sir Walter Scott: Ylväs kulkija Sydney Smith: Kävely vastalääkkeenä kaupungin myrkylle Søren Kierkegaard: Terveys ja pelastus on löydettävissä vain liikkeessä John Burroughs: Tien riemut Hilaire Belloc: Esipuhe kirjaan The Footpath Way Edward Thomas: Teistä ja poluista Arnold Haultain: Kävelystä ja kävelyretkistä - Yritys löytää filosofia ja usko Stephen Graham: Kulkemisen jalo taito