Draft poems

This material is held atNational Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru

  • Reference
    • GB 210 NLW MS 22921A.
  • Alternative Id.
      (alternative) vtls004636219
  • Dates of Creation
    • 1916
  • Physical Description
    • ii, 125 ff. (11 leaves torn out before f. 1, which is foliated 12 by Edward Thomas; ff. 2-7 foliated 1-6 by him; blank from f. 41 verso) ; 160 x 100 mm.
      Blue cloth covers with single gold fillet.
  • Location
    • ARCH/MSS (GB0210)

Scope and Content

Notebook, 1916, containing autograph drafts and revisions of twenty-seven untitled poems (ff. 7v-41), all published in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978), where the manuscript is designated M2 (p. xxiii) and assumed to have been 'used as a working notebook in camp - and in the train. Like M1 [NLW MS 22920A], it gives an admirable example of Thomas's working method as a poet and, according to his letters to Frost, it contains many of the poems he adjudged to be his best'. Also included are the final words of the essay, 'The Pilgrim' (f. 1) (see note below), an apparently unpublished prose dialogue between P., T. and Jehovah (ff. 1 verso-7) and trigonometrical sketches (ff. 29 verso-30 verso).

Note

Title based on contents.

Preferred citation: NLW MS 22921A.

Alternative Form Available

Digital version available: http://hdl.handle.net/10107/4755040 (viewed April 2017)
Included in the University of Oxford's 'First World War Poetry Digital Archive' http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/thomas (viewed July 2015)

Custodial History

'Edward Thomas / Wick Green / Petersfield / 26 xii 11' on f. ii.

Bibliography

For the essay 'The Pilgrim' see Edward Thomas, The Last Sheaf (London, 1928).

Additional Information

Published