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H. M. Tomlinson

1873-1958

Henry Major Tomlinson grew up in the East End of London, the great seaport (described in London River, destroyed in the Blitz). He became a shipping clerk, a journalist, a war correspondent, a newspaper editor, and a travel writer and novelist. He was greatly affected by the futile slaughter of World War I. His first book was ignored at the time but has been frequently reprinted since for a small, discerning audience such as yourself; his other works have not remained popular, at least in the United States. Deaf, bald, he always wore the black bowler hat of an East End clerk.

Professional writers should not read Tomlinson. No doubt any who try will throw away their keyboards in disgust when they compare their own frail abilities. His style and thinking must have been influenced by Emerson and Thoreau but is really that of the King James Bible, Homer and Shakespeare. His subject matter is often natural history or the foolishness of mortals who do not always realize the transcendental reality behind a common glance. His accounts of the sea, travel, and the Great War have not been surpassed. He is one author who produces quotable paragraphs on each page and can be read with pleasure again and again. It is time today to acknowledge his greatness.

Please note that all these works may be under copyright in the United Kingdom and other countries outside the United States of America.

Listings from the Library of Congress PREM catalog online at locis.loc.gov follow, with some additions from the British Library online, and with some pointers to our online editions and to reprints. See our /Search/ page for help in finding printed copies from your local bookseller, a bookseller online, or your local public library.

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