Dylan Thomas

A New Life

Andrew Lycett

• Publisher: ABRAMS Press
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781468304077
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

The renowned literary biographer offers a "thoroughly well-written" chronicle of the legendary Welsh poet's life that is "rich in anecdote" ( The New Yorker ). Dylan Thomas is as legendary for his raucous life as for his literary genius. The author of the immortal poems Death Shall Have No Dominion, Before I Knocked, and Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, as well as the short story A Christmas in Wales, and the "play for voices" Under Milk Wood, published his first book, 18 Poems, in 1934, when he was only twenty years old. When he died in New York in 1953, at age thirty-nine, the myths took hold: he became the Keats and the Byron of his generation—the romantic poet who died too young, his potential unfulfilled. Making masterful use of original material from archives and personal papers, Andrew Lycett describes the development of the young poet, brings valuable new insights to Thomas's poetry, and unearths fascinating details about the poet's many affairs and his tempestuous marriage to his passionate Irish wife, Caitlin. The result is a poignant yet stirring portrait of the chaos of Thomas's personal life and a welcome re-evaluation of the lyricism and experimentalism of his literary legacy. "This is the best biography of the poet I have ever read." —Robert Nye, The Scotsman

INDEX

Abels, Cyrilly 355

Aberconway, Christabel, Lady 124

Abercrombie, David 104

Abercrombie, Lascelles 104, 121

Abercrombie, Ralph 104

Aberystwyth 99–100

Ackerman, John 216

Action Française 134

Adam Smith, Janet 91, 104, 111

Adelphi 75, 90, 93, 111

Adler, Jankel 199, 209, 251, 270

Advocate 329

Agate, James 176

Aiken, Conrad 218, 235, 305

Aldington, Richard 47, 81, 105, 211

Algren, Nelson 332

Allen Wingate, publishers 322, 331, 346, 355

Amherst College 288

Amis, Kingsley 260, 315, 381

Anand, Mulk Raj 150

Anger, Kenneth 281

Ann Watkins agency 159, 165, 169, 218, 300, 308, 325

Anstey, Edgar 207

Apocalypse movement 168, 342

Arbeid, Ben 310–11

Archer, David 103, 104, 141, 164, 199, 209

Arena 273, 274

Arlen, Michael 350

Arlott, John 229, 230, 233, 244, 347

Armstrong, John 230

Arp, Jean 158

Arthur, Gavin 293

Atkin, Rev. Leon 96

Atlantic 321

Auchinloss, Louis 350

Auden, W.H. 75, 79, 84, 93, 109, 111, 113, 134, 136, 139, 143, 153, 165, 167, 170, 186, 194, 195, 196–7, 275, 278, 284, 326, 342, 353, 368, 374, 375

Ayrton, Michael 238

Bacon, Francis 373

Balcon, Michael 255

Banting, John 210, 217, 262

Barker, George 103, 104, 137, 141, 186, 230, 310

Barnes, Djuna 137, 138, 139

Barnes, G.R. 216, 314

Barrés, Maurice 134

Barrett, Mary Ellin 325–6

Bartok, Bela 327

Bartok, Peter 327

Bassett, Herbert 51

Bassett, Jackie 24, 43

Baumann...

Table of contents

• Cover
• By the Same Author
• Copyright
• Contents
• Family Tree
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• One: Swansea Aspirations
• Two: A Precocious Childhood
• Three: Virtue and Good Literature
• Four: My Body was my Adventure
• Five: Sore Trial
• Six: A Tormented Thing
• Seven: Epistolary Encounters
• Eight: The Rub of Love
• Nine: The Blindest Bit
• Ten: Caitlin, Emily and Veronica
• Eleven: Marriage Pangs
• Twelve: Skirting the War
• Thirteen: Hack Work
• Fourteen: Attempted Murder
• Fifteen: Oxford, the BBC and Italy
• Sixteen: Longing for Home
• Seventeen: View from the Shed
• Eighteen: A Voice on Wheels
• Nineteen: In the Direction of his Pain
• Twenty: Battle Against American Hospitality
• Twenty-One: To Begin at the Beginning
• Twenty-Two: The Gates of Hell
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Dylan Thomas