A Mirror of England

The collected poems of Edward Thomas

Born in Lambeth, London to Welsh parents on 3 March 1878, Philip Edward Thomas studied at St Paul’s school and Oxford before earning a living as a freelance journalist and author. As a result of his friendship with Robert Frost whom he met in 1912 (after Thomas’s death Frost was to describe him as "the only brother I ever had") he turned to poetry and his first collection was published in 1916 under the pseudonyum of Edward Eastaway. Between December 1914 and his death two years and four months later he wrote 142 poems and is increasingly regarded as among the finest and most influential British poets of the time. In July 1915 he enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles and then was commissioned in the Royal Artillery in 1916. He volunteered or service overseas and was sent to France in January 1917. He was killed in the battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917 at 7.36 a.m. He is buried in a military cemetary at Agny, south of Arras.

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