117 Facts About Dylan Thomas

1.

Dylan Thomas wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as A Child's Christmas in Wales and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog.

2.

Dylan Thomas became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City.

3.

Dylan Thomas came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult.

4.

Dylan Thomas began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts.

5.

Dylan Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s.

6.

Dylan Thomas died on 9 November 1953 and his body was returned to Wales.

7.

Dylan Thomas is noted for his original, rhythmic, and ingenious use of words and imagery.

8.

Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in Swansea the son of Florence Hannah, a seamstress, and David John 'Jack' Thomas, a teacher.

9.

Dylan Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles, who was eight years his senior.

10.

At the 1921 census, Nancy and Dylan Thomas are noted as speaking both Welsh and English.

11.

The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, in which Dylan Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.

12.

Dylan Thomas has written a number of accounts of his childhood growing up in Swansea, and there are accounts available by those who knew him as a young child.

13.

Dylan Thomas wrote several poems about his childhood and early teenage years, including "Once it was the colour of saying" and "The hunchback in the park", as well as short stories such as The Fight and A Child's Christmas in Wales.

14.

Dylan Thomas' childhood featured regular summer trips to the Llansteffan peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire.

15.

Dylan Thomas spent part of his summer holidays with Jim's sister, Rachel Jones, at neighbouring Pentrewyman farm, where he spent his time riding Prince the cart horse, chasing pheasants and fishing for trout.

16.

The young Dylan Thomas holidayed with them in Abergavenny, where Fulleylove had his practice.

17.

Dylan Thomas had been born and brought up in Llangadog, as had her father, who is thought to be "Grandpa" in Thomas's short story A Visit to Grandpa's, in which Grandpa expresses his determination to be buried not in Llansteffan but in Llangadog.

18.

Dylan Thomas's family had originated in another part of Welsh-speaking Carmarthenshire, in the farms that lay around the villages of Brechfa, Abergorlech, Gwernogle and Llanybydder, and which the young Thomas occasionally visited with his father.

19.

Dylan Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in childhood and struggled with these throughout his life.

20.

Dylan Thomas was indulged by his mother, Florence, and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, becoming skilled in gaining attention and sympathy.

21.

Dylan Thomas described his experience there in Reminiscences of Childhood:.

22.

Alongside dame school, Dylan Thomas took private lessons from Gwen James, an elocution teacher who had studied at drama school in London, winning several major prizes.

23.

Dylan Thomas taught "Dramatic Art" and "Voice Production", and would often help cast members of the Swansea Little Theatre with the parts they were playing.

24.

In October 1925, Dylan Thomas enrolled at Swansea Grammar School for boys, in Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English.

25.

Dylan Thomas was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading and drama activities.

26.

In June 1928, Dylan Thomas won the school's mile race, held at St Helen's Ground; he carried a newspaper photograph of his victory with him until his death.

27.

In 1931, when he was 16, Dylan Thomas left school to become a reporter for the South Wales Daily Post, where he remained for some 18 months.

28.

Dylan Thomas continued with acting and production throughout his life, including his time in Laugharne, South Leigh and London, as well as taking part in nine stage readings of Under Milk Wood.

29.

In 1933, Dylan Thomas visited London for probably the first time.

30.

In May 1934, Dylan Thomas made his first visit to Laugharne, "the strangest town in Wales", as he described it in an extended letter to Pamela Hansford Johnson, in which he writes about the town's estuarine bleakness, and the dismal lives of the women cockle pickers working the shore around him.

31.

Dylan Thomas introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends, now known as The Kardomah Gang.

32.

In those days, Dylan Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a nervous breakdown.

33.

On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Dylan Thomas did not know how to do this.

34.

In December 1935, Dylan Thomas contributed the poem "The Hand That Signed the Paper" to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly New Verse.

35.

Two years later, in 1938, Dylan Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was the year in which New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States.

36.

Dylan Thomas refused to align himself with them and declined to sign their manifesto.

37.

Dylan Thomas later stated that he believed they were "intellectual muckpots leaning on a theory".

38.

Dylan Thomas was a supporter of the left-wing No More War Movement and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the British Union of Fascists.

39.

In early 1936, Dylan Thomas met Caitlin Macnamara, a 22-year-old dancer of Irish and French Quaker descent.

40.

Dylan Thomas had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and aged 18 joined the chorus line at the London Palladium.

41.

Dylan Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met.

42.

Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Dylan Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing.

43.

At the outset of the Second World War, Dylan Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "an unreliable lung".

44.

Dylan Thomas wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income.

45.

Dylan Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the BBC, which not only gave him additional earnings but provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.

46.

Dylan Thomas walked through the bombed-out shell of the town centre with his friend Bert Trick.

47.

Dylan Thomas later wrote a feature programme for the radio, Return Journey, which described the cafe as being "razed to the snow".

48.

Dylan Thomas hoped to find employment in the film industry and wrote to the director of the films division of the Ministry of Information.

49.

Strand produced films for the MOI; Dylan Thomas scripted at least five films in 1942, This Is Colour and New Towns For Old.

50.

In early 1943, Dylan Thomas began a relationship with Pamela Glendower; one of several affairs he had during his marriage.

51.

In July 1944, with the threat in London of German flying bombs, Dylan Thomas moved to the family cottage at Blaencwm near Llangain, Carmarthenshire, where he resumed writing poetry, completing "Holy Spring" and "Vision and Prayer".

52.

On 31 August 1945, the BBC Home Service broadcast Quite Early One Morning and, in the three years beginning in October 1945, Dylan Thomas made over a hundred broadcasts for the corporation.

53.

Dylan Thomas was employed not only for his poetry readings, but for discussions and critiques.

54.

Dylan Thomas appeared in the play Comus for the Third Programme, the day after the network launched, and his rich, sonorous voice led to character parts, including the lead in Aeschylus's Agamemnon and Satan in an adaptation of Paradise Lost.

55.

Dylan Thomas remained a popular guest on radio talk shows for the BBC, who regarded him as "useful should a younger generation poet be needed".

56.

Dylan Thomas had an uneasy relationship with BBC management and a staff job was never an option, with drinking cited as the problem.

57.

Dylan Thomas continued with his work for the BBC, completed a number of film scripts and worked further on his ideas for Under Milk Wood, including a discussion in late 1947 of The Village of the Mad with the BBC producer Philip Burton.

58.

Dylan Thomas later recalled that, during the meeting, Thomas had discussed his ideas for having a blind narrator, an organist who played for a dog and two lovers who wrote to each other every day but never met.

59.

Dylan Thomas had been invited by the Czech government to attend the inauguration of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union.

60.

Jirina Haukova, who had previously published translations of some of Dylan Thomas's poems, was his guide and interpreter.

61.

Dylan Thomas acquired a garage a hundred yards from the house on a cliff ledge which he turned into his writing shed, and where he wrote several of his most acclaimed poems.

62.

Dylan Thomas rented "Pelican House" opposite his regular drinking den, Brown's Hotel, for his parents who lived there from 1949 until 1953.

63.

On returning to Britain, Dylan Thomas began work on two further poems, "In the white giant's thigh", which he read on the Third Programme in September 1950, and the incomplete "In country heaven".

64.

Dylan Thomas toured the country with the film crew, and his letters home vividly express his shock and anger with the poverty he saw around him.

65.

Dylan Thomas gave a reading at the British Council and talked with a number of Iranian intellectuals, including Ebrahim Golestan whose account of his meeting with Thomas has been translated and published.

66.

Taylor was not keen on Dylan Thomas taking another trip to the United States, and thought that if he had a permanent address in London he would be able to gain steady work there.

67.

Dylan Thomas bought a property, 54 Delancey Street, in Camden Town, and in late 1951 Thomas and Caitlin lived in the basement flat.

68.

Dylan Thomas would describe the flat as his "London house of horror" and did not return there after his 1952 tour of America.

69.

The trip resulted in Dylan Thomas recording his first poetry to vinyl, which Caedmon Records released in America later that year.

70.

Dylan Thomas had been in Laugharne for almost three years, but his half-play had made little progress since his time living in South Leigh.

71.

Dylan Thomas met the deadline only after being locked in a room by Brinnin's assistant, Liz Reitell, and he was still editing the script on the afternoon of the performance; its last lines were handed to the actors as they were putting on their makeup.

72.

Dylan Thomas spent the last nine or ten days of his third tour in New York mostly in the company of Reitell, with whom he had an affair.

73.

Dylan Thomas sent the original manuscript to Douglas Cleverdon on 15 October 1953.

74.

Dylan Thomas flew to the States on 19 October 1953 for what would be his final tour.

75.

Dylan Thomas died in New York before the BBC could record Under Milk Wood.

76.

Dylan Thomas left Laugharne on 9 October 1953 on the first leg of his fourth trip to America.

77.

Locke noted that Dylan Thomas was having trouble with his chest, "terrible" coughing fits that made him go purple in the face.

78.

Dylan Thomas was using an inhaler to help his breathing.

79.

Dylan Thomas's visit to the BBC producer Philip Burton, a few days before he left for New York, was interrupted by a blackout.

80.

Dylan Thomas arrived in New York on 20 October 1953 to undertake further performances of Under Milk Wood, organised by John Brinnin, his American agent and Director of the Poetry Centre.

81.

Dylan Thomas met Thomas at Idlewild Airport and was shocked at his appearance.

82.

Dylan Thomas went out in the evening to keep two drink appointments.

83.

When Todd telephoned the Chelsea that morning, Dylan Thomas said he was feeling ill and postponed the engagement.

84.

Dylan Thomas had wanted to say: "You sound as though from the tomb", but instead he told Thomas that he sounded like Louis Armstrong.

85.

Later, Dylan Thomas went drinking with Reitell at the White Horse and, feeling sick again, returned to the hotel.

86.

Dylan Thomas was comatose, and his medical notes state that "the impression upon admission was acute alcoholic encephalopathy damage to the brain by alcohol, for which the patient was treated without response".

87.

Rumours circulated of a brain haemorrhage, followed by competing reports of a mugging or even that Dylan Thomas had drunk himself to death.

88.

FitzGibbon's 1965 biography ignores Dylan Thomas's heavy drinking and skims over his death, giving just two pages in his detailed book to Dylan Thomas's demise.

89.

Ferris in his 1989 biography includes Dylan Thomas's heavy drinking, but is more critical of those around him in his final days and does not draw the conclusion that he drank himself to death.

90.

Dylan Thomas's body was brought back to Wales for burial in the village churchyard at Laugharne.

91.

Dylan Thomas's images appear carefully ordered in a patterned sequence, and his major theme was the unity of all life, the continuing process of life and death and new life that linked the generations.

92.

Dylan Thomas saw biology as a magical transformation producing unity out of diversity, and in his poetry sought a poetic ritual to celebrate this unity.

93.

Dylan Thomas saw men and women locked in cycles of growth, love, procreation, new growth, death, and new life.

94.

Dylan Thomas derived his closely woven, sometimes self-contradictory images from the Bible, Welsh folklore, preaching, and Sigmund Freud.

95.

When Henry Treece wrote to Dylan Thomas comparing his style to that of Hopkins, Dylan Thomas wrote back denying any such influence.

96.

Dylan Thomas greatly admired Dylan Thomas Hardy, who is regarded as an influence.

97.

When Dylan Thomas travelled in America, he recited some of Hardy's work in his readings.

98.

William York Tindall, in his 1962 study, A Reader's Guide to Dylan Thomas, finds comparison between Thomas's and Joyce's wordplay, while he notes the themes of rebirth and nature are common to the works of Lawrence and Thomas.

99.

Dylan Thomas once confided that the poems which had most influenced him were Mother Goose rhymes which his parents taught him when he was a child:.

100.

Dylan Thomas became an accomplished writer of prose poetry, with collections such as Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and Quite Early One Morning showing he was capable of writing moving short stories.

101.

Dylan Thomas's first published prose work, After the Fair, appeared in The New English Weekly on 15 March 1934.

102.

Korg surmises that Dylan Thomas approached his prose writing as an alternate poetic form, which allowed him to produce complex, involuted narratives that do not allow the reader to rest.

103.

Dylan Thomas disliked being regarded as a provincial poet and decried any notion of 'Welshness' in his poetry.

104.

Dylan Thomas acknowledged that he returned to Wales when he had difficulty writing, and John Ackerman argues that "His inspiration and imagination were rooted in his Welsh background".

105.

Dylan Thomas once wrote, "Land of my fathers, and my fathers can keep it".

106.

Apologetically, in a letter to Keidrych Rhys, editor of the literary magazine Wales, Thomas's father wrote that he was "afraid Dylan isn't much of a Welshman".

107.

When Seamus Heaney gave an Oxford lecture on the poet he opened by addressing the assembly, "Dylan Thomas is as much a case history as a chapter in the history of poetry", querying how 'Thomas the Poet' is one of his forgotten attributes.

108.

Many critics have argued that Dylan Thomas's work is too narrow and that he suffers from verbal extravagance.

109.

Dylan Thomas is a dazzling obscure writer who can be enjoyed without understanding.

110.

David Lodge, writing about The Movement in 1981 stated "Dylan Thomas was made to stand for everything they detest, verbal obscurity, metaphysical pretentiousness, and romantic rhapsodizing".

111.

In 2009, over 18,000 votes were cast in a BBC poll to find the UK's favourite poet; Dylan Thomas was placed 10th.

112.

Dylan Thomas cites that despite a brief period during the 1960s when Thomas was considered a cultural icon, that the poet has been marginalized in critical circles due to his exuberance, in both life and work, and his refusal to know his place.

113.

In June 2022, Dylan Thomas was the subject of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time.

114.

Dylan Thomas's home in Laugharne, the Boathouse, is a museum run by Carmarthenshire County Council.

115.

In 2004, the Dylan Thomas Prize was created in his honour, awarded to the best published writer in English under the age of 30.

116.

The prize, administered by the Dylan Thomas Centre, is awarded at the annual Swansea Bay Film Festival.

117.

Highlights included a touring replica of Dylan Thomas's work shed, Sir Peter Blake's exhibition of illustrations based on Under Milk Wood and a 36-hour marathon of readings, which included Michael Sheen and Sir Ian McKellen performing Dylan Thomas's work.