File 424/2/134/2. - Blenheim oranges,

Open original Digital object

Identity area

Reference code

424/2/134/2.

Title

Blenheim oranges,

Date(s)

  • 1916, Sep. 3 / (Creation)

Level of description

File

Extent and medium

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

Edward Thomas (1878-1917), poet and writer, was born Philip Edward Thomas in Lambeth to Welsh-born parents on 3 March 1878. He was educated at St Paul's School, London and Lincoln College, Oxford. Having left St Paul's, Thomas studied for the civil service examination, a move which expressed parental ambition rather than his own as he had reacted against the wordly views of his father, who worked for the Board of Trade and was prominent in Liberal politics. He was encouraged in his early literary ambitions by the critic James Ashcroft Noble and Thomas's first book, The Woodland Life, inspired by his love of the natural world, appeared as early as 1897. Thomas married Noble's daughter Helen (1877-1967) in 1899 and, having graduated from Lincoln College in 1900, made a precarious living as a literary reviewer for the Daily Chronicle whilst also writing essays, anthologies, guidebooks and folk-tales. He also published further books, including The Heart of England (1906), as well as biographical writings, most notably those on Richard Jefferies (1909), Maurice Maeterlinck (1911), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1912) and Walter Pater (1913). This period also produced his autobiographical works The Happy-Go-Lucky Morgans (1913), The Icknield Way (1913) and In Pursuit of Spring (1914). Possibly from an overwhelming feeling that his creativity was shackled and frustrated, Thomas at this time suffered recurrent physical and psychological breakdowns which once took him to the brink of suicide. It was not until 1914 that he wrote his first 'real' poem, entitled 'Up in the Wind'. The wartime collapse of the literary market at last afforded Thomas more time to write poetry; over a space of two years, he was to write over one hundred and forty poems. In 1915 Thomas joined the Artists' Rifles; he was commissioned second lieutenant in 1916 and volunteered for service overseas. In April 1917 he was killed during the first hour of the battle of Arras in northern France and buried the following day on the outskirts of the town; he therefore did not live to see the publication of his Poems (1917) (under his pseudonym Edward Eastaway), nor the subsequent Last Poems (1918) and Collected Poems (1920). His wife Helen wrote of their time together in As It Was (1926) and World Without End (1931). Thomas numbered amongst his poetical and literary influences Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, Walter de la Mare, and W. H. Davies.

Archival history

Once owned by Mary Elizabeth Thomas.

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

First line: Gone, gone again. Written at Royal Artillery School, Handel Street, London W.C. Typescript.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Action: digitized. Action identifier: cymruww1. Date: 2013. Authorization: The Welsh experience of World War One, 1914-1918.

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Language of material

  • English

Script of material

Language and script notes

English.

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Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Cardiff University.

Existence and location of copies

Digital version available https://viewer.library.wales/3671602 (January 2024)

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Notes area

Note

Item from Edward Thomas Archive, 424.

Note

Preferred citation: 424/2/134/2.

Alternative identifier(s)

Virtua system control number

vtls006590304

Project identifier

cymruww1

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Description identifier

Institution identifier

Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru = The National Library of Wales

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Dates of creation revision deletion

Language(s)

  • English

Script(s)

Sources

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