Edith M. Thomas

{{short description|American poet}} {{About|the American poet|the French novelist and archivist|Édith Thomas|the Chilean Olympic athlete|Edith Thomas (athlete)}}

{{Infobox writer  | image = Edith Matilda Thomas.jpg | imagesize = 225px | alt = A woman at bust length facing at about 45 degrees from the observer with a neutral expression on her face | caption = Thomas sometime before 1891 | pseudonym = | birth_name = Edith Matilda Thomas | birth_date = August 12, 1854 | birth_place = Chatham Center, Ohio, US | death_date = September 13, 1925 (age 71) | death_place = New York City, US | resting_place = | occupation = Poet | language = English | education = Oberlin College | alma_mater = | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notableworks = ''Lyrics and Sonnets'', ''The Inverted Torch'', ''The Flower from the Ashes'' | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = Edith Matilda Thomas signature.svg | signature_alt = Thomas's signature, slanted leftward, reading "Edith M. Thomas." | website = | portaldisp = }} '''Edith Matilda Thomas''' (August 12, 1854 – September 13, 1925) was an American poet who "was one of the first poets to capture successfully the excitement of the modern city."<ref name=women>Edward T. James and Janet Wilson James, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=rVLOhGt1BX0C&pg=RA2-PA445 Thomas, Edith Matilda]," ''Notable American Women'' (Harvard University Press, 1974), 444-445. Google Books, Web, Apr. 15, 2011.</ref>

==Life== Born in Chatham Center, Ohio, Edith Thomas was educated at the normal school of Geneva, Ohio, and attended Oberlin College (though she had to drop out).<ref name="poetry">"[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/edith-m-thomas Edith M. Thomas]," Poetry Foundation, Web, Mar. 29, 2011.</ref> She taught school for two years, and then became a typesetter.<ref name=women/>

She began writing early for the local newspapers, then was encouraged by author Helen Hunt Jackson to send verse to more important periodicals. She "gained national attention with her poetry.... ''Scribner's'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The Century'' and other prominent magazines published her poems."<ref name="ohio">"[http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=374 Edith Thomas]," Ohio History Central, Web, Mar. 29, 2011.</ref> Jackson's "enthusiasitic endorsement produced almost immediate literary celebrity."<ref name=women/>

In 1884, Canadian poet Charles G.D. Roberts wrote of her that "as far as I am aware her poems are not yet gathered in book form, and are therefore only to be obtained, few in number, by gleaning from the magazines and periodicals. Yet so red-blooded are these verses, of thought and of imagination all compact, so richly individual and so liberal in promise, that the name of their author is already become conspicuous.... We are justified in expecting much from her genius."<ref name=roberts>Charles G.D. Roberts, "[http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/confederation/roberts/non-fictional_prose/younger.htm Notes on Some of the Younger American Poets]," ''The Week'' 1:21, 24 April 1884, 328-29. Canadian Poetry, UWO, Web, Mar. 29, 2011.</ref>

Her first volume appeared in 1885 entitled ''A New Year's Masque and Other Poems''.

In 1887 she moved to New York City, where she worked for ''Harper's'' and ''Century Dictionary''.<ref name="poetry"/> She lived in New York for the rest of her life.<ref name=map>Louis Untermeyer, ''[https://archive.org/stream/modernamericanpo030000mbp/modernamericanpo030000mbp_djvu.txt Modern American Poetry]'' (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930), 112.</ref> She published over 300 poems between 1890 and 1909, although "the demands of the leading literary magazines constantly exceeded her supply."<ref name=women/>

On her death she was called "one of the most distinguished American poets” by ''The New York Times''.<ref name="poetry"/>

Her ''Selected Poems'' came out in 1926, a year after her death.<ref name="poetry"/>

==Writing== Canadian poet Sir Charles G.D. Roberts wrote that "Miss Thomas’s work, in some of its best characteristics, recalls to me Shakespeare’s sonnets."<ref name=roberts/>

In ''Modern American Poetry,'' Louis Untermeyer called her "the author of some dozen books of verse, most of them lightly lyrical in mood, although a few of her poems have a more dramatic quality. The best of her work may be found in ''Lyrics and Sonnets'' (1887), ''The Inverted Torch'' (1890), and ''The Flower from the Ashes'' (1915).<ref name=map/>

Thomas acknowledged Helen Hunt Jackson as a major influence on her work.<ref name="ohio"/>

The biographical dictionary ''Notable American Women'' says that "she drew her principal literary inspiration from the lyrics of John Keats. She was a classic poet in her prosodic regularity and in her continuing attention to Greek subjects. She was romantic in her emphasis on the self, although an aura of sentiment and pathos kept her from developing a constructive romantic position.... She was one of the first poets to capture successfully the excitement (''the "ardent bulbs"'') of the modern city, and one of the most consistent in crying out against the inroads of the dollar sign on American culture."<ref name="women"/>

==Publications== * ''A New Year's Masque and Other Poems''Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1885. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1885.<ref name=openemt/> * ''The Round Year''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1886.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Lyrics and Sonnets''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1887.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Babes of the Year''. New York: F.A. Stokes, 1888.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Babes of the Nations''. New York: F.A. Stokes, 1889.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Heaven and Earth'' (1889) * ''The Inverted Torch''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1890.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Fair Shadow Land''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1893.<ref name=openemt/> * ''In Sunshine Land''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1895.<ref name=openemt/> * ''In the Young World''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1896.<ref name=openemt/> * ''A Winter Swallow, With Other Verse''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896.<ref name=openemt/> * ''The Dancers''. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1903.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Cassia, and other Verse''. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1905.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Children of Christmas''. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1907.<ref name=openemt/> * ''The Guest at the Gate''. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1909.<ref name=openemt/> * ''The Flower from the Ashes''. Portland, ME: T.B. Mosher, 1915.<ref name=openemt/> * ''The White Messenger, and Other War Poems''. Boston: R.G. Badger, 1915.<ref name=openemt/> * ''Selected Poems'', ed. Jessie Belle Rittenhouse ed. New York, London: Harper Brothers, 1926.<ref name=openemt>Search results: [https://openlibrary.org/search?q=edith+matilda+thomas Edith Matilda Thomas], Open Library, Web, May 9, 2011.</ref>

==References== {{Portal|Poetry|Biography|United States|Ohio|New York City}} For an essay on Thomas by Kevin De Ornellas see ''Early American Nature Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia'' by Daniel Patterson (Editor), Greenwood Press (2007), {{ISBN|0-313-34680-1}}.

===Notes=== {{Reflist}}

==External links== {{wikisource|works=or}} {{Commons category|Edith Matilda Thomas}} * {{Gutenberg author | id=40721| name=Edith Matilda Thomas}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Edith Matilda Thomas}} * {{Librivox author |id=8092}} * [http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00989 Works by Edith Matilda Thomas] at Harvard University Library * {{LCAuth|n82116848|Edith Matilda Thomas|25|}} (including 7 "from old catalog")

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Edith Matilda}} Category:1854 births Category:1925 deaths Category:19th-century American poets Category:20th-century American poets Category:People from Ashtabula County, Ohio Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from A Woman of the Century Category:20th-century American women poets Category:19th-century American women poets