THE PASSING THRONG. Pocket Edition in Original Box with spider tissue wrapper

by Edgar A. Guest

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.

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

The family of Edgar Albert Guest settled in Detroit, Michigan, in 1891. When his father lost his job in 1893, eleven-year-old Edgar between working odd jobs after school. In 1895, the Detroit Free Press hired him as a copy boy, and he worked for the newspaper for almost sixty-five years. Death of the father compelled the seventeen-year-old poet to drop out high school and to work full time at the newspaper. From copy boy, he worked his way to a job in the news department. His first poem appeared on 11 December 1898. His weekly column, "Chaff," first appeared in 1904; his topical verses eventually became the daily "Breakfast Table Chat," which was syndicated to over three-hundred newspapers throughout the United States.

Guest married Nellie Crossman in 1906. The couple had three children. His brother Harry printed his first two books, Home Rhymes and Just Glad Things, in small editions. His verse quickly found an audience and the Chicago firm of Reilly and Britton began to publish his books at a rate of nearly one per year. His collections include Just Folks (1917), Over Here (1918), When Day Is Done (1921), The Passing Throng (1923), Harbor Lights of Home (1928), and Today and Tomorrow (1942).

From 1931 to 1942, Guest broadcast a weekly program on NBC radio. In 1951, "A Guest in Your Home" appeared on NBC TV. He published more than twenty volumes of poetry and was thought to have written over 11,000 poems. Guest has been called "the poet of the people." Most often, his poems were fourteen lines long and presented a deeply sentimental view of everyday life. He considered himself "a newspaper man who wrote verses." Of his poem he said, "I take simple everyday things that happen to me and I figure it happens to a lot of other people and I make simple rhymes out of them." His Collected Verse appeared in 1934 and went into at least eleven editions.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/...

Reviews

[Clarissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I’m so glad I decided to reread this when I did…there’s such a thing as the right book at the right time, and I truly needed this one now!

I first remember finding these poems when I was a kid, nestled in amongst all the other bigger, thicker poetry collections in the bookcase behind my Dad’s living room chair. I would build a blanket castle between the shelves and the recliner and sneak peeks into what I thought of as “Grown-up books”. I was never much impressed by the poetry I had to read for school, but I remember reading the verse in this slim little gloss-paged book and thinking that the words were absolute magic. I was so amazed that words could conjure so much emotion and imagery, when all the other poems I’d been exposed to were flat and dry in comparison.

I’m so glad to find the magic was unchanged with age...my love for them has grown even more as an adult rereading this, and now that I’m older and can understand much more of what Edgar Guest is writing about, they hold so much more comfort and meaning than they did when I was a child sneaking reads in my blanket castle.

Guest’s poetry speaks plainly and comfortingly of life’s joys and trials; of love, imagination, loss, rejoicing, and sadness—all glowing throughout with the hope that faith in a loving God brings to a soul so desperately in need of it. A certain comfort that I’ll be returning to often, I’m sure.