Edward Thomas 1878–1917

Abstract

Philip Edward Thomas was born in London and educated at St Paul’s School and Lincoln College, Oxford. He was a journalist and a biographer; books such as The Heart of England express his love of nature. The American poet Robert Frost (1874–1963), whom he met in 1912, encouraged him to write poetry. He joined the army in 1915. Poems was published shortly after he was killed at Arras, in 1917. Walter de la Mare, in his Foreword to the Collected Poems of 1920, commended his ‘grave and sensitive mind’. New editions of his poems appeared in 1928, 1949 and 1978.