H. M. Tomlinson

Tomlinson moved within the literary circles associated with Edward Garnett and The English Review, alongside figures such as Joseph Conrad, John Galsworthy, W. Hudson and Ford Madox Ford. The American journalist, novelist and poet Christopher Morley once described him as the "Lord God of English prose", and his prose style has been favourably compared with Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

• Name — H. M. Tomlinson • Born — 21 June 1873 • Died — 5 February 1958 • Occupation — Journalist, novelist • Birthplace — Poplar, London, United Kingdom • Place of death — Poplar, London, United Kingdom • Notable Works — * The Sea and the Jungle (1912) • Gallions Reach (1927) • All Our Yesterdays (1930) • The Turn of the Tide (1945) • Spouse — Florence Margaret Hammond (1899) • Children — 3

Tomlinson was born and raised in Poplar, London to Henry Tomlinson, a foreman at the West India Docks, and Emily Major. Educated at a local school, Henry began working as a shipping clerk at the docks at the age of twelve. In 1886, his father died, and Henry became responsible for providing for the family. In the evenings Tomlinson continued his education by studying geology, botany, mineralogy and zoology. After a quarrel with his employer at the docks led him to walk out of his job, Tomlinson "presented himself on the spur of the moment to the editor of the Morning Leader, a Radical paper which later became the Daily News, and was given a job", becoming a full-time employed reporter in 1904. In their employ he was sent on several international trips, including an expedition (beginning in Cardiff, Wales) in 1909–10 some 2,000 miles up the Amazon River in South America, and his journey became the basis for one of his most celebrated books, The Sea and the Jungle (1912). In World War I he was an official correspondent for the British Army, in France. He became disillusioned with the conduct of the war, and in 1917 he returned to work with H. W. Massingham as the Literary Editor of The Nation magazine, which opposed the war. Christopher Morley wrote in 1957 that Tomlinson "never really recovered from the first World War, which he witnessed as a war correspondent. The death and destruction which he saw at first hand corroded his spirit, though he never lost his faith in the "nobodies," the common men who had won that war." He left the paper in April 1923 with Massingham when Joseph Rowntree decided to sell the journal to a group headed by John Maynard Keynes. In 1930 he published an autobiographical account of his war experiences in his book All Our Yesterdays. Tomlinson continued to write novels and travel stories until the end of his life. His final novel, The Trumpet Shall Sound (1957) is set during the Second World War, in particular during The Blitz, and follows the stories of the Gale family in London. In a review of the book, The New York Times concluded that "[as] a marksman, Mr. Tomlinson is master of many kinds of arrows." The New Yorker's review wrote that "It is fascinating, human, and beautifully told in full but not sad consciousness of all that goes on in human hearts—the fear and pain and love and confusion and joy—whether the hours are spent with books and roses or out in the dark within sound of gunfire." Tomlinson died on 5 February 1958 at the age of 84.

On 26 December 1899, at St. Stephen's Church, Poplar, he married Florence Margaret Hammond, daughter of Thomas Hammond, a sailmaker, of Pekin Street, Poplar, by whom he had a son and two daughters.

• The Sea and the Jungle (1912) • Old Junk (1918) • London River (1921; revised edition 1951) • Waiting for Daylight (1922) • Tidemarks: Some Records of a Journey to the Beaches of the Moluccas and the Forest of Malaya in 1923 (1924) • Gifts of Fortune With Some Hints For Those About to Travel (1926) • Under the Red Ensign (1926) • Out of Soundings (1928) • Côte d'Or (1929) • South to Cadiz (1934) • Below London Bridge (1934) • The Wind is Rising: The War Diary of H. M. Tomlinson and a Vision of All Our Tomorrows (1941) • Morning Light: The Islanders in the Days of Oak and Hemp (1946) • Malay Waters (1950) • The Face of the Earth (1950) • The Haunted Forest (1951) • A Mingled Yarn: Autobiographical Sketches (1953)

• Gallions Reach (1927) • A Brown Owl (1928) • Illusion: 1915 (1928) • Between the Lines (1930) • All Our Yesterdays (1930) • The Sky's the Limit (1930) • The Snows of Helicon (1933) • Mars His Idiot (1935) • Pipe All Hands (1937) • The Day Before: A Romantic Chronicle (1939) • The Turn of the Tide (1945) • The Trumpet Shall Sound (1957)

• Thomas Hardy (1929) • Norman Douglas (1931)

• Great Sea Stories of All Nations (1930), editor • Best Short Stories of the War (1931), editor • Modern Travel (1939), editor

• War Books: A Lecture Given at Manchester University, 15 February 1929 (1930) • An Illustrated Catalogue of Rare Books on the East Indies and A Letter to a Friend (1932) • RMS Queen Mary: A Noble Tribute to the Imagination of Man (1935; with E. P. Leigh-Bennett) • "Ports of Call" in The Queen's Book of the Red Cross (1939)