The literary career of Edward Thomas was an unusual one in that he did not work in the genre for which he is now most noted--poetry--until he had put in eighteen years writing pastoral essays, criticism, biographies, travel books, collections of short fiction, and a novel. He devoted only two years to poetry--the last years of his life before his death in the trenches of France. Yet, thanks to the later advocacy of influential critics such as F. R. Leavis, his poems have overshadowed his other work. Certainly his poetry was the best literary work of his short life, but his short prose fiction does have value in chronicling the development of the imagination that came to fruition in his poetry. In addition several of his best stories powerfully interfuse reality with dreams and visions and offer poignant psychological insight.

Philip Edward Thomas was born in London on...