Jeremy Mitchell, Chair of the Edward Thomas Fellowship and Keeper of the Collections in the Edward Thomas Study Centre, writes:
A First edition (1901) publication of Polyphemus and Other Poems, by R. C. Trevelyan (1872-1951), with designs by R. E. Fry (1866-1934) and signed and dated (1901) by the writer, literary critic and poet Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917).
The FNL continues to be most generous to Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery and The Edward Thomas Fellowship as we add manuscript and signed books to the collection of the late Tim Wilton-Steer held in the Edward Thomas Study Centre at the Museum and Gallery.
Whilst other repositories holding Edward Thomas material, such as the National Library of Wales and Cardiff University, have a wide range of signed or manuscript items, our own collection has few such items and we have embarked on a policy of seeking to increase interest in the collection through the addition of examples such as this.
Edward Thomas was a literary critic, writer and, ultimately, poet who was killed in the First World War at the beginning, literally, of the Battle of Arras on Easter Monday, 9 April 1917.
Prior to December 1914, when he began to write the 144 poems for which he is now most well-known (Adlestrop, Tall Nettles and As The Team’s Head Brass, for instance) from, it was as a literary critic and reviewer for publications such as the Daily Chronicle (from as early as 1900) that Thomas made his name as one of those from whom a favourable review was most widely sought.
A look at the Daily Chronicle archives shows that between 1900 and 1913 barely a day passed without a review by Thomas and one of those, in March 1902, was of Polyphemus and Other Poems, by R C Trevelyan. Early in 2023 the very copy that Thomas had reviewed (as evidenced by his signature and date, 1901) was offered for sale by Cox and Budge Booksellers.
Whilst Trevelyan himself may not currently be amongst the most collectable of poets from that period, there is a wider connection between him and Thomas – Trevelyan and Lascelles Abercrombie together compiled An Annual of New Poetry in 1917 which included 18 of Thomas’s poems (published for the first time but still under the pseudonym of Edward Eastaway) – making this association copy an important acquisition.
The book has wider interest thanks to the Roger Fry illustrations, which are early examples of his art, and which possibly make the book more collectable on that account than Trevelyan’s erudite poetics.
Consequently, we are thrilled to have been able to add this book to our collection and once again thank FNL for their generosity in making this acquisition possible.
