Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/47
Elses
14.xi.05

My dear Gordon
I am very glad to hear
from you again in spit of your little
bit of bad news which was I hope
untrue by the time it reached me. But
I really am busy now. For three weeks
I have been preparing & writing an article in
Jefferies for Temple Bar & now I have
only 4 days work left before I take a short
holiday in Wales & in those 4 days I
must write on Tchaikovsky's life & letters,
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Turgenier,
& more on Jefferies.
But about your book. I
daresay it will come ot me from The Academy
& I will try for it from the 'Chronicle'.
Don't send a copy to the Evans. They never
review verse or practically never & I only
annoy them when I ask them for it - as I
many times have done & in vain. Send it to
The Speaker & I may get a few words on it
there. Of other papers I can only
suggest "The Outlook',
'The Independent Review', and 'The Manchester

Guardian. Can't you & I should be grateful
of you would send me am advance copy so
that I can prevent Keighley Snowden? In
any case I ought to know the earliest probable
date of publication. It sounds fine.
You didn't say that Gildhas sent any
more books - so I suppose he hasn't: but ask,
when you can hear of a forthcoming likely book.
Your prose poem really had no chance. Their
verse is their only exception to the rule that
their matter is 'critical' in the narrowest
sense.
I must take a short holiday and a
friend invites me to Swansea, so I
go on the 21st for a about a week (after
3 days in London) & hope to get done
walking in Caermarthenshire. From there
I hope I shall write to you. But I am unusually
plagued as well as busy, feel as if I ought to
fall in in a heap on entering Wales; probably I shall
only drink beer though.
Please send my love and sympathy
(if you can) to your Mother, Father & give
it to Aunt Sarah with Helen's.
Goodbye,
I am ever yours
Edward Thomas