Monography

“Edward Thomas, who was killed in France in 1917, at the age of thirty-nine, wrote a large number of prose books. Even when forced to produce books for money he wrote with distinction and thought for himself; and the best of his English travel books are the work of a man saturated with every aspect of the country. For nearly twenty years he wrote no verse, but in 1913 he began writing poetry profusely. Only a few of his friends knew that “Edward Eastaway”, who appeared in an anthology in 1917, was he. He was very shy about his verse and had prepared for publication a volume over the same pseudonym. His poems have now appeared with his real name on them. They make beyond comparison his best book; and there have been few books so good in our time.”

[The above seems to have been written circa 1920. Squire is referring to two collections, “Six Poems by Edward Eastaway”, Pear Tree Press (1916) and “Poems” by Edward Thomas, Holt (1917).]