author
Edith Matilda Thomas
1854–1925
Raised on an Ohio farm and later drawn to New York literary life, this American poet wrote with a clear, musical voice that moved easily from nature to city streets. Her work helped bridge 19th-century lyric poetry and a more modern urban sensibility.
1 Audiobook
Children of Christmas, and Others
by Edith Matilda Thomas
About the author
Born in Chatham Center, Ohio, in 1854, Edith Matilda Thomas was encouraged in the arts from an early age. She studied at Geneva Normal School and at Oberlin College, though she did not complete a degree, and she worked as a teacher and typesetter before turning fully toward literary work.
Thomas published numerous poetry collections, including A New Year's Masque and Other Poems, The Inverted Torch, Fair Shadow Land, and A Winter Swallow. Reference sources and poetry organizations describe her as an American poet whose writing ranged from quiet, reflective nature lyrics to vivid poems that caught the energy of modern city life.
She spent much of her later career in New York and died there in 1925. Remembered for her lyrical style and for bringing both rural memory and urban feeling into her poems, she remains an intriguing voice in American poetry at the turn of the century.