EDWARD THOMAS IN DETAIL
Edward Thomas. A Biography and a Bibliography. By Robert F. Eckert. (Dent. los. 6d.) THERE is a remarkable index to this work, from which my first glance brought these entries : " Galsworthy, John, an occa- sional attendant at Edward Garnett's lunches, 96 " ; " Gibson, Ashley, . . . a regular attendant at Edward Thomas's teas, 96." Another shot produced : " Lamplough's pyretic saline, quota- tion from an advertisement of, 4." On the whole, those entries persisted in my mind throughout the reading of Mr. Eckert's biography—a very careful and sensitive piece of writing, but
burdened with the sort of detail that makes no impression. Perhaps it is my own defect ; perhaps others will welcome such passages as this :
" After Easter, in the spring of 1914, upon his return from a fortnight in Wales, spent partly with friends near Swansea and partly at Laughame, on the coast, at lodgings where he stayed in the winter of 1911, Thomas went to Ledington, in Gloucester- shire, where Frost had just taken a house that Abercrombie and Gjimpjaad found...for him. Not far from Gloucester, north of. the -Foresi of Dan, it was on the borders of Herefordshire and Worcester- shire, near Dymock and tedbury; in-the-beautiful country of the West Midlands, the daffodil country where John Masefield was
born.". -
- The result of this meticulous style is an informative record but an uncertain portrait. Thomas appears through it all as an attractive being, a lover of Nature, a friend of authors, a . busy, ingenious, sometimes, far-seeing writer ; his: activities •
and his preferences are set but before us, and we may take
the paths he took, stoop for flowers he liked, see the books' he .kept:-- Mr. Be kert has drawn his narrativeetogeflier with patient skill from a variety of sourceihe has not missed, for'exainple, Mr. J. W. Haines's article on Thomas in the Gloucester Journal
of February 16th, 1935. And yet I surmise that the words
used by Mr. Haines on Thomas's death : " No more sublime spirit ever passed from the earth," imply a personal quality which Mr. Eckert's biographical method does not really impress on the reader. It is to be regretted that no account of.Thomas
on active service, as he appeared in that new responsibility and opportunity, seems to have been written by any of his fellow-
gunners ; there are signs that he must have been at his best in this short phase of his life away from literature and literary
personalities.
. However this may be, and however the pen-portrait of Thomas may yet be drawn, Mr. Eckert's biography is a work of taste and devotion. The second part of the book is a biblio- graphy, a great deal of which the ordinary man will cordially leave alone ; but the collector (Mr. Eckert himself is probably rather inclined towards- collecting than writing) may find it all
of value, though elaborate collations of mere reissues of works undertaken almost entirely for a livelihood would have startled Edward Thomas. Mr. Eckert's tendency, as bibliographer and as biographer, is to include too much ; and the same 'punc- tiliousness which informs us that an ephemeral anthology
containing two reprinted poems of Thomas cost kr is. in a limited edition, and 5s. in a trade edition, blurs the outline
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