The late emergence of Thomas’ poetry after years of ‘hack’ writing, his sometimes troubled family life and his early death has been explored in several biographies as well as the play The Dark Earth and the Light Sky by Nick Dear. Thomas’ ‘ghost’ accompanies Robert Macfarlane as he cycles the Ickneild way and walks across landscapes in The Old Ways. In 2007, Branch-Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry collected together numerous poems and articles relating to Thomas by over fifty poets and critics. One of the earliest poems about Thomas after he was killed in action a hundred years ago in the First World War was written by Eleanor Farjeon: