INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING POEMS

Adlestrop
As the team’s head brass
Blenheim Oranges
Bugle Call
The Chalk Pit
The Cherry Trees
Cock-Crow
Digging [1]
Digging [2]
February Afternoon [Sonnet 2]
Fifty Faggots
In Memoriam [Easter 1915]
Last Poem [The Sorrow of true love]
Lights Out
Man and Dog
The New House
October
Out in the dark
The Owl
A Private
Rain
Roads
Swedes
Thaw
This is no case of petty right or wrong

BONUS MATERIAL
The War Diary of Edward Thomas, 1 January-8 April 1917
(an unabridged reading by Barnaby Edwards)

‘October’, ‘Rain, Midnight Rain’ and ‘England beautiful’
(three incidental music suites by Howard Carter)

Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was an English poet, biographer and literary critic. A contemporary of Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon, Thomas was encouraged to write verse by the American poet Robert Frost. He was working on his debut collection, to be published under the pseudonym ‘Edward Eastway’, when he was killed in action in France in April 1917.

His work combines a romantic but unsentimental love of the countryside with a brutally honest depiction of the horrors of the Great War.

ENGLISH STUDENTS:

Edward Thomas - Selected Poems is a set text for the following examinations:
AQA AS/A-Level GCE English Literature A (Wider Reading: World War One Literature specifies Edward Thomas. Specific poems to study are: 'In Memoriam', 'The Cherry Trees', 'Rain' & 'As the team's head brass'.)
EdExcel GCE English Literature (Poetry specifies 'The New House', 'Digging', 'As the team's head brass', 'Cock-crow' & 'In Memoriam'; Explorations in Prose and Poetry specifies Edward Thomas)
OCR AS/A-Level GCE English Literature (Poetry and Prose 1800-1945 specifies Edward Thomas. Specific poems to study are: 'Aspens' [available in our Members area only], 'This is no case of petty right or wrong', 'Rain', 'As the team's head brass', 'Blenheim Oranges' & 'Lights Out'.)

FURTHER READING:

Works by Edward Thomas:
The Annotated Collected Poems, ed. Edna Longley (Bloodaxe Books, 2008)
Edward Thomas's Poets, ed. Judy Kendall (Carcanet Press, 2007)
Elected Friends: Robert Frost and Edward Thomas to One Another, ed. Matthew Spencer (Other Press, 2004)
Edward Thomas: Selected Letters, ed. R. George Thomas (Oxford University Press, 1995)
Childhood of Edward Thomas: A Fragment of Autobiography (Faber & Faber, 1983)
Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. R. George Thomas (Oxford University Press, 1978)
Collected Poems (Collins, 1973)
The Diary of Edward Thomas (Anglo-Welsh Review, vol.20, no.45, 1971)
Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 1936)
Collected Poems (Ingpen & Grant, 1922)

Studies of Edward Thomas:
William Cooke, Edward Thomas: A Critical Biography (Faber & Faber, 1970)
William Cooke, The War Diary of Edward Thomas (Stand, vol.19, no.4, 1978)
H. Coombes, Edward Thomas (Chatto & Windus, 1956)
Eleanor Farjeon, Edward Thomas: The Last Four Years (Bodley Head, 1958)
Jan Marsh, Edward Thomas (Elek, 1978)
John Moore, The Life and Letters of Edward Thomas (Heinemann, 1939)
Andrew Motion, The Poetry of Edward Thomas (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)
Helen Thomas, As It Was (1926)
Helen Thomas, World Without End (1931)
R.G. Thomas, Edward Thomas: A Portrait (Oxford University Press, 1985)
Vernon Scannell, Edward Thomas (British Council Monograph, 1965)