Life and Writing

Abstract

At first sight, Philip Edward Thomas’s love of the countryside seems surprising in one who was born (3 March 1879) between Wandsworth and Clapham Commons and spent his youth in these and adjacent areas of South London. But in these places, by walks into the still existing woods and fields to the south as well as over Wimbledon Common, and on holidays in Swindon and South Wales, it was possible to observe and enjoy the countryside and wildlife which he described in the Childhood of Edward Thomas and recorded in the diary that appeared in his first book, The Woodland Life.

The subject of this book was a man who was continually writing about himself, whether openly or in disguise. He was by nature inclined to thinking about himself and when he came to write he naturally wrote about himself. (Edward Thomas, George Borrow, London 1912, p. 1.)