Publishing my Edward Thomas

New book of Eleanor Farjeon's Poems

Anne Harvey, Eleanor Farjeon's literary executor and scholar of all things Farjeon, sent me this news. Full details of Eleanor Farjeon's work below. I've also shown other Laurel books of interest to Thomas enthusiasts including of course In Pursuit of Spring.

Laurel Books

LIKE SORROW or a TUNE

The night will never stay,

The night will still go by,

Though with a million stars

You pin it to the sky;

Though you bind it with the blowing wind

And buckle it with the moon,

The night will slip away

Like sorrow or a tune.

LIKE SORROW OR A TUNE is a new collection of the poetry of ELEANOR FARJEON

1881—1965

introducing her to fresh readers who are not entirely sure who she was or what she wrote in her long writing career.

Who was ELEANOR FARJEON?

“Oh yes, I remember”… She wrote that marvellous autobiography of the 1890s Childhood she and her three brothers shared in a Hampstead nursery….no real education, play acting, books, cricket and writing stories, theatre visits, music…father a novelist, mother the daughter of a great American actor……..

and….. she was a famous children’s writer of over 80 books,stories, poems and plays ; winner of 3 major Awards

and…..she was the plump and bespectacled cosy cat-loving woman who wrote the lyrics for MORNING HAS BROKEN…….

and…. she was the shy, literary, clever woman who was a friend of Walter de la Mare,Robert Frost, and D.H.Lawrence and fell in love

with EDWARD THOMAS, wrote a memoir of their 4-year Friendship

and some heart-breaking sonnets of her love for him…..and…and…

****************

All aspects of her long and colourful life emerge in the diverse range

of poems in LIKE SORROW OR A TUNE

edited by ANNE HARVEYwith a foreword by PIERS PLOWRIGHT

***************

Available in bookshops from 25^th April 2013. Price £9.99

ISBN 978-1-873390-14-6

www.laurelbooks.co.uk

LAUREL BOOKS

282The Common

Holt,Wiltshire,BA14 6QJ

Tel:01225 782874 email:mail@laurelbooks.co.uk

All ages of Eleanor

This is very good news. I have not seen more than one of those sonnets -

the one which I was given permission to reproduce in the novel:

"She had the look of a woman who could not wait to meet her lover. Mrs Farjeon had to speak out.

Eleanor ran to her room and wept for a few minutes. Then she asked the maid to take a note to

the telegraph exchange, sending her apologies. Her birthday gifts to Edward were posted some days before..

Much of the day she spent gazing into the fire, crying useless tears.

Sometimes she pictured him sitting opposite her in the chair on the other side of the fire, reading, smoking his pipe, while she read too; sometimes they’d smile at each other, or break off reading when they were compelled to share something the other would like. Then perhaps, she dreamed, he would say loving words to her. He would¾but no, this was wrong, it was wrong to force him into an image that was not and never could be a true one:

‘Forgive, forgive the words you have not spoken!

Forgive the words I shall not speak to you!

Forgive the broken silence, still unbroken,

When strength and resolution are worn through.

Forgive the looks you are strange to, oh forgive

The embrace you will not offer while you live.’ "

Eleanor on holiday

'Strange Meetings: Poems by Harold Monro'

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Dominic Hibberd

Harold Monro was one of the leaders in the revolution in poetry just before the First World War, contributing through his writing, the Poetry Bookshop he established and the three periodicals he created. His reputation as a generous supporter of new talent is unquestioned. His friend, T.S. Eliot wrote, ". . . he has not simply done something better than anyone else, but has done something that no one else has done at all." Driven first by visionary hope for the future, Monro wrote on themes as diverse as war, sexuality, threats to the environment, domesticity and the death of a lover in battle. The end of his life was clouded by loss, illness and disappointment, and his poetry which Edward Thomas called "intensely interesting", naturally grew bleaker and more pessimistic. Yet as T.S. Eliot said, ". . . it is a world which we ought to visit."

Selection

Dominic Hibberd has taught at universities in Britain, the United States and China. Now a freelance author, he lives in the Cotswolds. His publications include two biographies, Harold Monro: Poet of the New Age (2000)―described by the Sunday Times as 'gripping'―and the much acclaimed Wilfred Owen: A New Biography (2002), as well as Wilfred Owen: The Last Year 1917-1918 (1992), Owen the Poet (1986) and various editions, anthologies and academic articles, mostly about the literature of the First World War.

ISBN 978-1-873390-05-4 Pbk 128pp £7.99

'In Pursuit of Spring' by Edward Thomas

A year before the start of World War I, finding life as a critic and journalist stressful and unsatisfying, Edward Thomas wrote this account of a ride on a bicycle from London to the Quantocks. The book, a classic of English literature, combines Thomas's unsentimental self analysis with an emphasis on the importance of place and nature to other writers, especially poets. It also records the tacit reactions of a transcendental thinker to the rising threat of war. Having achieved perhaps his finest work in prose in 'In Pursuit of Spring', Thomas was next to turn to writing the poetry which has secured his reputation.

Selection

ISBN 978-1-873390-04-7 Pbk 240pp £9.99
REPRINTING - AVAILABLE MAY 2013

Visit the In Pursuit of Spring website: www.inpursuitofspring.co.uk

'Light and Twilight' by Edward Thomas

The fourteen short stories in 'Light and Twilight' are Edward Thomas's prose masterpiece on the themes of death and desire. Their objective is to pinpoint moments when the defining elements of life reveal themselves, like stars at sunset. Readers familiar with his poetry will discover the stories in 'Light and Twilight' to be as hauntingly beautiful. This is the first edition since 1911.

Selection

ISBN 978-1-873390-03-0 Pbk 92pp £6.99
REPRINTING - AVAILABLE MAY 2013