author
Geoffrey Bache Smith
1894–1916
A gifted young English poet and close friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, he left behind a small body of work shaped by school friendships, Oxford, and the First World War. His voice is often remembered through A Spring Harvest, the posthumous collection that helped keep his poems alive.
1 Audiobook
A Spring Harvest
by Geoffrey Bache Smith
About the author
Born on October 18, 1894, Geoffrey Bache Smith was an English poet educated at King Edward’s School in Birmingham. He became part of the close-knit Tea Club and Barrovian Society, the circle of friends that also included J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Wiseman.
Smith later studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, while continuing to write poetry. When the First World War came, he served as an officer in the Lancashire Fusiliers.
He died in France on December 3, 1916, at just 22 years old. His poems were published after his death in the 1918 collection A Spring Harvest, and his connection to Tolkien has helped later readers rediscover him as one of the war’s overlooked young poets.