Now All Roads Lead to France - Tapa dura

Edward Thomas was perhaps the most beguiling and influential of the First World War poets. Now All Roads Lead to France is an account of his final five years, centered on his extraordinary friendship with Robert Frost and Thomas's fateful decision to fight in the war. The book evokes an astonishingly creative moment in English literature: a generation that included W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Rupert Brooke. These larger-than-life characters surround Thomas, who is tormented by his work and his marriage. Ultimately the decision to fight in the war costs Thomas his life, and it is the roads taken--and those not taken--that are at the heart of this remarkable book

A perceptive biography that traces an author's trajectory from disillusioned prose scribe to acclaimed poet.... Poet Hollis (Ground Water, 2004), who edited a volume of Thomas' selected poetry, expertly recreates the upheaval of English society as it made the transition from genteel post-Victorianism to brash modernism. Thomas stood poised on the dividing line between W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot and justly remains a towering figure in English poetry. This diligently researched and masterfully written exposition will appeal to Anglophiles and fans of literary biography.