Dylan Thomas
1 book in the library
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, born in Swansea, where his father taught English at the grammar school. He left school at sixteen to work as a reporter, and his first collection, 18 Poems, appeared in 1934, when he was twenty. He moved between London and Wales, married Caitlin Macnamara in 1937, and during the Second World War wrote scripts for documentary films and became a familiar voice on BBC radio. His books include the stories of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (1940) and the collection Deaths and Entrances (1946), with “Fern Hill”, and his villanelle “Do not go gentle into that good night” is among the best-known poems in English. From 1950 his reading tours of the United States made him famous for his performances, but his health was failing, worsened by heavy drinking. He died in New York in November 1953, at thirty-nine, shortly after completing Under Milk Wood.
