Fresh out of a Defiance, Ohio, high school, Thomas Boyd (1898–1935) joined the Marines to serve his country in the patriotic heat of the spring of 1917. In 1919 he came home from the war with a Croix de Guerre and a desire to write. He joined the St. Paul News as a journalist and opened a bookstore, whose patrons included F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis. Through the Wheat appeared to immediate acclaim, with F. Scott Fitzgerald calling it "a work of art" and "arresting." Boyd wrote five other works before he died in Vermont of a cerebral hemorrhage at age thirty-seven.

Through the Wheat: A Novel of the World War I Marines

Literature & Fiction

Boyd, Thomas

United States

University Of Nebraska Press

“There is no battle in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, no conflict in Stendhal’s account of Waterloo, to equal the drama and terror of Boyd’s account of Private Hicks’ advance through the wheat,” James Dickey writes in his Afterword to this new edition of a truly remarkable World War I novel.
Earlier, in 1923 on the novel’s first publication, F. Scott Fitzgerald closed his review of it with the statement that it “is not only the best combatant story of the great war but also the best war book since The Red Badge of Courage,” and was joined in his praise of the novel by such critics as Edmund Wilson.
Boyd, who fought in the war, writes in the tradition of Stephen Crane. In Private Hicks, ordinary, young, trapped by World War I, he creates the archetype of the modern warrior for whom battle holds a horror no previous soldier had to endure—the horror of technology—because of which a man may fight, suffer wounds, die, without ever seeing the face of the enemy. It is a vision of war, Dickey adds, “that is as profound as any vision of war has ever been from the tribes of the caves to the ambushes of Vietnam.” Boyd saw war as a massive, brutal rape on even the most elemental of human rights, a rape no man deserves, no mind can tolerate.
Thomas Boyd, who died in 1935 at the age of thirty-six, joined the Marines as a high school student from Defiance, Ohio. He saw action on several fronts, was gassed, and was awarded the Croix de guerre.

Through the Wheat (Lost American Fiction)

Genre Fiction

Southern Illinois University Press

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Poor John Fitch: Inventor of the Steamboat

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Ayer Co. Pub

Author Thomas Boyd is best known for the novel "Through the Wheat," long considered the greatest American novel of World War I. Boyd was a Marine in WWI, saw much fighting action, and was deeply influenced by his battlefield experience. Later, he wrote for newspapers, and while working in a bookstore and writing the literary page of the St. Paul, Minnesota daily newspaper, was befriended by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who then recommended him to the great editor, Maxwell Perkins. As a result, Boyd published several books with Scribners edited by Perkins, including this short story collection, written in place of a sequel to his first war novel, in 1925. As he does in other books, Boyd thoroughly rejects the romance of war, creating situations that are sometimes grotesque, sometimes absurd, always human at their core. This collection has been called "haunting" and like its better known predecessor "Through the Wheat," should be included in the canon of American war stories.

Points of Honor

Rvive Books

Thomas Boyd is best known for "Through the Wheat," considered the greatest American novel of WW I. Boyd was a Marine, saw much fighting action, and was deeply influenced by his wartime experience. Later he wrote for newspapers, and while running a bookstore and writing the literary page of the St. Paul daily newspaper, was befriended by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who recommended him to Maxwell Perkins. Boyd published several books with Scribner's, all edited by Perkins. In Time of Peace was Boyd's last published novel, originally published by Minton Balch Putnam in 1935. It is a powerful story of the upwardly mobile Roaring Twenties followed by the disaster of the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression. Boyd brilliantly captures the clash and contradictions of materialist life and higher human values. In Time of Peace will resonate strongly for many modern readers, who cannot help but to see the roots of our own contemporary struggles to cope with the complexities of modern society.

In Time of Peace: A Novel

The Dark Cloud

Through The Wheat

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

Through the Wheat

Independently published

Poems

History

Military

BiblioLife

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