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Jack Haines (Edward Thomas) manuscripts
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Edward Thomas letters and poems

Papers, [1903]-[1922], of Jack Haines relating to Edward Thomas, comprising: an apparently unpublished holograph book review by Thomas, [?early 1903], entitled 'Pioneers! O Pioneers', reviewing Gerald Stanley Lee, The Lost Art of Reading (New York and London, 1902) (ff. 1-4); a carbon copy typescript of 'The West Wind', being an abbreviated, and otherwise unknown, version of 'The Wind's Song', consisting of the last ten lines only of that poem ('The Wind's Song', composed in April 1916, is No. 110 in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978), pp. 300-301) (f. 5); a carbon copy typescript of the poem 'Lights Out', written in early November 1916, first published in Edward Thomas ("Edward Eastaway"), Poems (London, 1917), pp. 59-60, and No. 139 in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, pp. 366-7 (f. 6); a typescript copy of the poem 'Out in the dark', written on Christmas Eve 1916, first published in Edward Thomas, Last Poems (London, 1918), p. 96, and No. 143 in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, pp. 374-5 (f. 7); a manuscript copy, undated and in an unidentified hand, of the poem beginning 'I may come near loving you', first published as 'P.H.T.' in Edward Thomas, Collected Poems (Fifth Impression) (London, 1949) and No. 99 in The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, pp. 272-3 (f. 8); a letter, [28] June 1915, from Edward Thomas, at Bablake School, Coventry, to Haines, sending a [?typescript] draft of his poem 'Words' (the poem is not named in the letter and is no longer present; Thomas also sent a revised version to Haines on 30 June 1915, see NLW, R. George Thomas (Edward Thomas) Research Papers /1) (f. 9); a letter card, 10 September 1915, from E[dward] T[homas], Balham, to Haines (f. 10); and a letter, [1922], from Helen Thomas, Otford, Sevenoaks, to Haines, discussing her marriage to Edward Thomas and his friendship with Robert Frost, and sending Haines the manuscript now NLW MS 24122B (f. 11-12).

Thomas, Helen, 1877-1967

Edward Thomas poetry manuscript

Exercise book once belonging to Edward Thomas, containing autograph drafts, 1914, of two of his earliest poems 'The Mountain Chapel' and 'Birds' Nests', together with a draft, [1915], of 'House and Man'.
'The Mountain Chapel' material, dated 17 December 1914 (f. 2), seems to consist of an initial draft (ff. 1 verso-2, 3, 4), a second draft (ff. 5-6) with further revisions to the opening section only (f. 4 verso), and a final draft (ff. 2 verso, 3 verso) which closely corresponds to the published versions; it was first published in his Last Poems (London, 1918), pp. 62-63. The 'Birds' Nests' material, dated 18 December 1914 (on ff. 7, 8), consists of an early draft (f. 6 verso), a second draft (f. 7) and a final draft (f. 8); the latter is very close to the poem as first published in his Poems (London, 1917), p. 54, with only three substantive variants (lines 3, 7 and 15). The single, revised, draft of 'House and Man' (f. 7 verso) closely corresponds to the other known autograph copy in London, British Library Add. MS 44990, and the version printed in Last Poems (London, 1918), p. 90, except for the omission here of the last line-and-a-half ('…veering about, / A magpie like a weathercock in doubt'). 'House and Man' was first published, with a few variants, in Root and Branch, 1.4 (1915), 59, making it (jointly with 'Intervals') his first poem to see print. In The Collected Poems of Edward Thomas, ed. by R. George Thomas (Oxford, 1978) 'The Mountain Chapel' is poem No. 10 (pp. 44-47), 'Birds' Nests' is No. 9 (pp. 42-43) and 'House and Man' is No. 33 (pp. 104-105); the dating of the first two in the present manuscript suggests the conjectured chronological arrangement of that volume (and also Edward Thomas, The Annotated Collected Poems, ed. by Edna Longley (Tarset, 2008)), is incorrect.

Jack Haines (Edward Thomas) manuscripts

  • GB 0210 MSHAINESED
  • Fonds
  • [1903]-[1922]

Papers, [1903]-[1922], of Jack Haines relating to his friend, the writer and poet Edward Thomas, comprising manuscript and typescript poems and drafts of poems, 1914-[1916]; a book review, [1903]; and letters from Edward Thomas, 1915, and Helen Thomas, [1922].

Thomas, Edward, 1878-1917