Selected Poems of Edward Thomas


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When Edward Thomas was killed at the Battle of Arras in 1917 his poems were largely unpublished.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 and 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




Selected Poems and Prose


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The Poetry Of Edward Thomas


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When Edward Thomas died at Arras in 1917 few people thought of him as a poet. Yet in the two years before his death, after a lifetime writing prose, Thomas wrote some of the most enduring poems of his day: poems of war, nature, friendship, despair and exultation. Andrew Motion's pioneering study of Thomas' life and achievement is scholarly yet utterly absorbing, combining an account of his struggles as a writer with perceptive readings of individual poems. Andrew Motion's books include a biography, The Lamberts, George, Constant and Kil, and several prize-winning collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Love in a Life. He is currently writing the authorized biography of Philip Larkin.




The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas


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Edward Thomas: Prose Writings: a Selected Edition


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Edward Thomas can be seen as the most important poetry critic in the early twentieth century. Thomas was a prose-writer before he was a poet. The Selected Edition of his prose, and especially this volume, shows that he was also a critic before he was a poet. His unusual literary career opens up key questions about the relation between poetry and criticism, as well as between poetry and prose. Thomas wrote books about poetry, but his criticism mainly took the form of reviews. He reviewed collections, editions, and studies of poetry, most regularly, for the Daily Chronicle and the Morning Post. These reviews amount to a unique commentary on the state of poetry and of poetry criticism after 1900. Since reviewing provided Thomas's main income, he also reviewed other kinds of book. Hence the sheer mass of his reviews, the stress he suffered as a literary journalist. Yet his criticism maintains an astonishingly high standard. Thomas's response to contemporary poetry intersects with his readings of older poetry. No critic or poet of the time was so deeply acquainted with the traditions of English-language poetry or so alert to new poetic movements in Ireland and America. Edward Thomas's writings on poetry have a double importance. Besides suggesting the hidden evolution of his own aesthetic, they constitute a lost history and critique of poetry before the Great War. They change our assumptions about that period. Thomas's perspectives on poets such as Yeats, Hardy, Frost, Lawrence, and Pound illuminate the making of modern poetry.




Robert Frost


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In this volume, Lesley Lee Francis, granddaughter of Robert Frost, brings to life the Frost family's idyllic early years. Through their own words, we enter the daily lives of Robert, known as RF to his family and friends, his wife, Elinor, and their four children, Lesley, Carol, Irma, and Marjorie. The result is a meticulously researched and beautifully written evocation of a fleeting chapter in the life of a literary family.Taught at home by their father and mother, the Frost children received a remarkable education. Reared on poetry, nurtured on the world of the imagination, and instructed in the art of direct observation, the children produced an exceptional body of writing and artwork in the years between 1905 and 1915. Drawing upon previously unexamined journals, notebooks, letters, and the little magazine entitled The Bouquet produced by the Frost children and their friends, Francis shows how the genius of Frost was enriched by his interactions with his children. Francis depicts her grandfather as a generous, devoted, and playful man with a striking ability to communicate with his children and grandchildren. She traces the family's adventures from their farm years in New Hampshire through their nearly three years in England. This enchanting evocation of the Frost family's life together makes more poignant the unforeseen personal tragedies that would befall its members in later years.




Haunted by Christ


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W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, William Golding, Elizabeth Jennings, C. S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Stevie Smith . . . These are some of the great poets and novelists whose struggles with faith find expression in their works, and who demonstrate the fascinatingly different forms that faith can take in different times and places. Richard Harries considers the work of twenty of these writers, painting vivid pictures of their lives and times. He also provides numerous critically sympathetic insights into the spiritual dimension of their writings. The result is a book for readers of all religious persuasions, especially those who are fascinated by the ways in which faith is refracted through the lens of great poetry and fiction. Also by Richard Harries: The Beauty and the Horror (SPCK, 2016) ‘A major new defence of Christianity that does not flinch from asking difficult questions about the kind of God who could have created our world.’ The Bookseller ‘A heartening book, confronting the hardest questions with wide knowledge and deep wisdom.’ John Carey, Chief Literary Reviewer, Sunday Times ‘An eloquent, honest and engaging case for Christian faith.’ The Tablet ‘A deeply interesting book.’ Mary Warnock




Edward Thomas


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Edward Thomas: The Origins of his Poetry builds a new theoretical framework for critical work on imaginative composition through an investigation of Edward Thomas’s composing processes, on material from his letters, his poems and his prose books. It looks at his relation to the land and landscape and includes detailed and illuminating new readings of his poems. It traces connections between Thomas’s approach to composition and the writing and thought of Freud, Woolf and William James, and the influence of Japanese aesthetics, and draws surprising and far-reaching conclusions for the study of poetic composition.




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