Letters to Helen

Letters to Helen, edited from original manuscripts held in libraries in Aberystwyth and Cardiff, includes twenty one of the more than one thousand letters which the poet Edward Thomas sent to his wife Helen and eighteen of her replies. They give us a vivid insight into the heart of their legendary relationship, recounted in Under Storm's Wing, Helen's memoirs and their daughter Myfanwy's recollections. Thomas's life was tragically cut short in France in 1917.

Helen and Edward were together for twenty-one years. The letters evoke a provincial and settled world of books and nature, the hardships love weathered, and the change that came in 1915.

For the first time both sides of the correspondence are edited together, providing an unposed narrative portrait of one of our finest rural poets. Thomas's early letters to Harry and Jane Hooton complete this rich collection.