Selected Poems and Prose

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 deep. Forest where all must lose. Their 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).