Edward Thomas

Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was a British poet, essayist, and novelist. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences, and his career in poetry only came after he had already been a successful writer and literary critic. In 1915, he enlisted in the British Army to fight in the First World War and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France. Nowadays there is a significant re-discovery of Thomas as a nature writer and poet. It is perhaps easy to think that Edward Thomas belonged to a long-distant past a world where footpaths go on for ever, summer days are long, hot and full of bird song; and followed by dark and starry nights. But during Thomas's life between 1878 and 1917, the traditional social life of the countryside had almost disappeared. Even where it hadn't, someone like Edward Thomas, a middle-class Londoner, would not have belonged to it. He wrote about villages, inns, wildlife and folk music, but it was from the perspective of an enthusiastic outsider. Edward Thomas compiled a number of anthologies on nature, literature and poetry. One of them is an inspiration for this book, the collection A Pocket Book of Poems and Songs For the Open Air. This selection of Edward Thomas's poems and prose serves the same purpose.