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Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953)
was a
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...
poet and writer whose works include the poems "
Do not go gentle into that good night
"Do not go gentle into that good night" is a poem in the form of a villanelle by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953), and is one of his best-known works. Though first published in the journal ''Botteghe Oscure'' in 1951, the poem was written in ...
" and "
And death shall have no dominion
"And death shall have no dominion" is a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). The title comes from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans (6:9).
Publication history
In early 1933 Thomas befriended Bert Trick, a grocer who worked in the ...
", as well as the "play for voices" ''
Under Milk Wood
''Under Milk Wood'' is a 1954 radio drama by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, commissioned by the BBC and later adapted for the stage. A film version, ''Under Milk Wood'' directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released in 1972, and another adaptation of ...
''. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as ''
A Child's Christmas in Wales
''A Child's Christmas in Wales'' is a piece of prose by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas recorded by Thomas in 1952. Emerging from an earlier piece he wrote for BBC Radio, the work is an anecdotal reminiscence of a Christmas from the viewpoint of a ...
'' and ''
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'' is a collection of short prose stories written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, first published by Dent on 4 April 1940. The first paperback copy appeared in 1948, published by the British Publishers Guild.
...
''. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet".
Thomas was born in
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe).
The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, in 1914. In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the ''
South Wales Daily Post''. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met
Caitlin Macnamara
Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara; 8 December 1913 – 31 July 1994) was an author and the wife of the poet and writer Dylan Thomas. Their marriage was a stormy affair, fuelled by alcohol and infidelity, though the couple remained together until D ...
. They married in 1937 and had three children: Llewelyn, Aeronwy, and Colm.
He came to be appreciated as a popular poet during his lifetime, though he found earning a living as a writer difficult. He began augmenting his income with reading tours and radio broadcasts. His radio recordings for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
during the late 1940s brought him to the public's attention, and he was frequently used by the BBC as an accessible voice of the literary scene.
Thomas first travelled to the United States in the 1950s. His readings there brought him a degree of fame, while his erratic behaviour and drinking worsened. His time in the United States cemented his legend, and he went on to record to
vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...
such works as ''A Child's Christmas in Wales''. During his fourth trip to New York in 1953, Thomas became gravely ill and fell into a coma. He died on 9 November 1953 and his body was returned to Wales. On 25 November 1953, he was interred at St Martin's churchyard in
Laugharne
Laugharne ( cy, Talacharn) is a town on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tâf.
The ancient borough of Laugharne Township ( cy, Treflan Lacharn) with its Corporation and Charter is a unique survival ...
, Carmarthenshire.
Although Thomas wrote exclusively in the English language, he has been acknowledged as one of the most important Welsh poets of the 20th century. He is noted for his original, rhythmic, and ingenious use of words and imagery. His position as one of the great modern poets has been much discussed, and he remains popular with the public.
Life and career
Early time
Dylan Thomas was born on 27 October 1914 in
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe).
The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...
the son of Florence Hannah (''née'' Williams; 1882–1958), a
seamstress
A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician.
Nota ...
, and David John Thomas (1876–1952), a teacher. His father had a first-class honours degree in English from
University College, Aberystwyth, and ambitions to rise above his position teaching English literature at the local
grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...
. Thomas had one sibling, Nancy Marles (1906–1953), who was eight years his senior.
The children spoke only English, though their parents were bilingual in English and Welsh, and David Thomas gave Welsh lessons at home. Thomas's father chose the name Dylan, which could be translated as "son of the sea" after
Dylan ail Don Dylan ail Don () (in Middle Welsh) is a character in the Welsh mythic Mabinogion tales, particularly in the fourth tale, "'' Math fab Mathonwy''". The story of Dylan reflects ancient Celtic myths that were handed down orally for some generations b ...
, a character in ''
The Mabinogion
The ''Mabinogion'' () are the earliest Welsh prose stories, and belong to the Matter of Britain. The stories were compiled in Middle Welsh in the 12th–13th centuries from earlier oral traditions. There are two main source manuscripts, create ...
''. His middle name, Marlais, was given in honour of his great-uncle, William Thomas, a
Unitarian minister and poet whose
bardic name
A bardic name (, ) is a pseudonym used in Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement.
The Welsh term bardd ("poet") originally referred to the Welsh poets of the Middle Ages, who m ...
was
Gwilym Marles.
Dylan, pronounced
ˈ dəlan(Dull-an) in Welsh, caused his mother to worry that he might be teased as the "dull one". When he broadcast on
Welsh BBC early in his career, he was introduced using this pronunciation. Thomas favoured the Anglicised pronunciation and gave instructions that it should be Dillan .
The red-brick semi-detached house at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (in the respectable area of the
Uplands), in which Thomas was born and lived until he was 23, had been bought by his parents a few months before his birth.
Childhood
Thomas has written a number of accounts of his childhood growing up in Swansea, and there are also accounts available by those who knew him as a young child. 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''.
Thomas' childhood also featured regular summer trips to the
Llansteffan
Llansteffan, is a village and a community situated on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tywi, south of Carmarthen.
Description
The community includes Llanybri and is bordered by the communities of: ...
peninsula, a Welsh-speaking part of Carmarthenshire, In the land between
Llangain
Llangain is a village and community in Carmarthenshire, in the south-west of Wales. Located to the west of the River Towy, and south of the town of Carmarthen, the community contains three standing stones, and two chambered tombs as well as the ...
and Llansteffan, his mother's family, the Williamses and their close relatives, worked a dozen farms with over a thousand acres between them. The memory of Fernhill, a dilapidated 15-acre farm rented by his maternal aunt, Ann Jones, and her husband, Jim Jones, is evoked in the 1945 lyrical poem "
Fern Hill", but is portrayed more accurately in his short story, ''The Peaches''. Thomas also spent part of his summer holidays with Jim's sister, Rachel Jones, at neighbouring Pentrewyman farm.
A few fields south of Fernhill lay Blaencwm, a pair of stone cottages to which his mother’s Swansea siblings had retired, and with whom the young Thomas and his sister, Nancy, would sometimes stay. A couple of miles down the road from Blaencwm is the village of
Llansteffan
Llansteffan, is a village and a community situated on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tywi, south of Carmarthen.
Description
The community includes Llanybri and is bordered by the communities of: ...
, where Thomas used to holiday at Rose Cottage with his aunt, Anne Williams, his mother’s half-sister who had married into local gentry.
Thomas' paternal grandparents, Anne and Evan Thomas, lived at The Poplars in Johnstown, just outside
Carmarthen
Carmarthen (, RP: ; cy, Caerfyrddin , "Merlin's fort" or "Sea-town fort") is the county town of Carmarthenshire and a community in Wales, lying on the River Towy. north of its estuary in Carmarthen Bay. The population was 14,185 in 2011, ...
. Anne was the daughter of William Lewis, a gardener in the town. She had been born and brought up in
Llangadog
Llangadog () is a village and community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales, which also includes the villages of Bethlehem and Capel Gwynfe. A notable local landscape feature is Y Garn Goch with two Iron Age hill forts.The Welsh Academy Encycloped ...
, 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.
Evan worked on the railways and was known as Thomas the Guard. His family had originated in another part of Welsh-speaking Carmarthenshire, in the farms that lay around the villages of
Brechfa
Brechfa, situated between Llandeilo and Carmarthen in the county of Carmarthenshire, Wales, is a village that has existed since the 6th century at the top of the Cothi Valley. Brechfa village is set in countryside, as well as being located by t ...
,
Abergorlech,
Gwernogle and
Llanybydder
Llanybydder (, sometimes formerly spelt ''Llanybyther'') is a market town and community straddling the River Teifi in Carmarthenshire, West Wales. At the 2011 Census, the population of the community was 1638, an increase from 1423 at the 2001 ...
, and which the young Thomas occasionally visited with his father. His father's side of the family also provided the young Thomas with another kind of experience; most lived in the towns of the South Wales industrial belt, including
Port Talbot
Port Talbot (, ) is a town and community in the county borough of Neath Port Talbot, Wales, situated on the east side of Swansea Bay, approximately from Swansea. The Port Talbot Steelworks covers a large area of land which dominates the south ...
,
Pontarddulais
Pontarddulais (), also known as Pontardulais (), is both a community and a town in Swansea, Wales. It is northwest of the city centre. The Pontarddulais ward is part of the City and County of Swansea. Pontarddulais adjoins the village of Hendy ...
and
Cross Hands
Cross Hands is a town in Carmarthenshire, Wales, approximately from Carmarthen.
Cross Hands Public Hall is one of only three of its kind in Wales. The Public Hall was erected in 1920 and designed by an unknown Italian designer in the classic A ...
.
Thomas had
bronchitis
Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. ...
and
asthma
Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, cou ...
in childhood and struggled with these throughout his life. He was indulged by his mother, Florence, and enjoyed being mollycoddled, a trait he carried into adulthood, becoming skilful in gaining attention and sympathy.
[Ferris (1989), p. 25.] But Florence would have known that child deaths had been a recurring event in the family's history, and it's said that she herself had lost a child soon after her marriage. But if Thomas was protected and spoilt at home, the real spoilers were his many aunts and older cousins, those in both Swansea and the Llansteffan countryside. Some of them played an important part in both his upbringing and his later life, as Thomas’s wife, Caitlin, has observed: “He couldn't stand their company for more than five minutes... Yet Dylan couldn't break away from them, either. They were the background from which he had sprung, and he needed that background all his life, like a tree needs roots.”.
Education
Thomas's formal education began at Mrs Hole's
dame school
Dame schools were small, privately run schools for young children that emerged in the British Isles and its colonies during the early modern period. These schools were taught by a “school dame,” a local woman who would educate children f ...
, a private school on Mirador Crescent, a few streets away from his home. He described his experience there in ''Reminiscences of Childhood'':
Never was there such a dame school as ours, so firm and kind and smelling of galoshes, with the sweet and fumbled music of the piano lessons drifting down from upstairs to the lonely schoolroom, where only the sometimes tearful wicked sat over undone sums, or to repent a little crime – the pulling of a girl's hair during geography, the sly shin kick under the table during English literature.
Alongside dame school, Thomas also took private lessons from Gwen James, an elocution teacher who had studied at drama school in London, winning several major prizes. She also taught “Dramatic Art” and “Voice Production”, and would often help cast members of the Swansea Little Theatre (see below) with the parts they were playing. Thomas's parents’ storytelling and dramatic talents, as well as their theatre-going interests, could also have contributed to the young Thomas’s interest in performance.
In October 1925, Thomas enrolled at
Swansea Grammar School for boys, in
Mount Pleasant, where his father taught English. He was an undistinguished pupil who shied away from school, preferring reading and drama activities. In his first year one of his poems was published in the school's magazine, and before he left he became its editor. Thomas' various contributions to the school magazine can be found here:
During his final school years he began writing poetry in notebooks; the first poem, dated 27 April (1930), is entitled "Osiris, come to Isis". In June 1928, 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.
In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas left school to become a reporter for the ''
South Wales Daily Post'', where he remained for some 18 months. After leaving the newspaper, Thomas continued to work as a freelance journalist for several years, during which time he remained at Cwmdonkin Drive and continued to add to his notebooks, amassing 200 poems in four books between 1930 and 1934. Of the 90 poems he published, half were written during these years.
On the Stage
The stage was also an important part of Thomas’s life from 1929 to 1934, as an actor, writer, producer and set painter. He took part in productions at Swansea Grammar School, and with the YMCA Junior Players and the
Little Theatre, which was based in the
Mumbles
Mumbles ( cy, Mwmbwls) is a headland sited on the western edge of Swansea Bay on the southern coast of Wales.
Toponym
Mumbles has been noted for its unusual place name. The headland is thought by some to have been named by French sailors, ...
. It was also a touring company that took part in drama competitions and festivals around South Wales. Between October 1933 and March 1934, for example, Thomas and his fellow actors took part in five productions at the Mumbles theatre, as well as nine touring performances. Thomas continued with acting and production throughout his life, including his time in Laugharne,
South Leigh
:''There is also a Southleigh in Devon.''
South Leigh is a village and civil parish on Limb Brook, a small tributary of the River Thames, about east of Witney in Oxfordshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 336.
Manor
So ...
and London (in the theatre and on radio), as well as taking part in nine stage readings of ''Under Milk Wood''. The Shakespearian actor,
John Laurie
John Paton Laurie (25 March 1897 – 23 June 1980) was a Scottish actor. In the course of his career, Laurie performed on the stage and in films as well as television. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in the sitcom '' Dad's Army'' (19 ...
, who had worked with Thomas on both the stage and radio thought that Thomas would “have loved to have been an actor” and, had he chosen to do so, would have been “Our first real poet-dramatist since Shakespeare.”
Painting the sets at the Little Theatre was just one aspect of the young Thomas’s interest in art. His own drawings and paintings hung in his bedroom in Cwmdonkin Drive, and his early letters reveal a broader interest in art and art theory. Thomas saw writing a poem as an act of construction “as a sculptor works at stone,” later advising a student “to treat words as a craftsman does his wood or stone...hew, carve, mould, coil, polish and plane them...” Throughout his life, his friends included artists, both in Swansea and in London, as well as in America.
In his free time, Thomas visited the cinema in Uplands, took walks along
Swansea Bay
Swansea Bay ( cy, Bae Abertawe) is a bay on the southern coast of Wales. The River Neath, River Tawe, River Afan, River Kenfig and Clyne River flow into the bay. Swansea Bay and the upper reaches of the Bristol Channel experience a large tid ...
, and frequented Swansea's
pub
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
s, especially the Antelope and the Mermaid Hotels in Mumbles. In the
Kardomah Café, close to the newspaper office in Castle Street, he met his creative contemporaries, including his friend the poet
Vernon Watkins
Vernon Phillips Watkins (27 June 1906 – 8 October 1967) was a Welsh poet and translator. His headmaster at Repton was Geoffrey Fisher, who became Archbishop of Canterbury. Despite his parents being Nonconformists, Watkins' school experienc ...
and the musician and composer,
Daniel Jones with whom, as teenagers, Thomas had helped to set up the "Warmley Broadcasting Corporation". This group of writers, musicians and artists became known as "
The Kardomah Gang
The Kardomah Gang,The Kardomah Boys, or Kardomah Group was a group of bohemian friends – artists, musicians, poets and writers – who, in the 1930s, frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street, Swansea, Wales.
Members of the Gang ...
". This was also the period of his friendship with Bert Trick, a local shopkeeper, left-wing political activist and would-be poet, and with the Rev.
Leon Atkin, a Swansea minister, human rights activist and local politician.
In 1933, Thomas visited London for probably the first time.
London and marriage, 1933–1939
Thomas was a teenager when many of the poems for which he became famous were published: "
And death shall have no dominion
"And death shall have no dominion" is a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914–1953). The title comes from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans (6:9).
Publication history
In early 1933 Thomas befriended Bert Trick, a grocer who worked in the ...
", "Before I Knocked" and "The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower". "And death shall have no dominion" appeared in the ''
New English Weekly
''The New English Weekly'' was a leading British review of "Public Affairs, Literature and the Arts."
It was founded in April 1932 by Alfred Richard Orage shortly after his return from Paris. One of Britain's most prestigious editors, Orage had ed ...
'' in May 1933.
When "Light breaks where no sun shines" appeared in ''
The Listener'' in 1934, it caught the attention of three senior figures in literary London,
T. S. Eliot,
Geoffrey Grigson
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...
and
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the ...
.
They contacted Thomas and his first poetry volume, ''18 Poems'', was published in December 1934. ''18 Poems'' was noted for its visionary qualities which led to critic
Desmond Hawkins
Desmond Hawkins, OBE (20 October 1908 – 6 May 1999), born in East Sheen, Surrey, was an author, editor and radio personality.
Career
The political and artistic upheavals of the 1930s meant a proliferation of serious magazines. Desmond w ...
writing that the work was "the sort of bomb that bursts no more than once in three years".
The volume was critically acclaimed and won a contest run by the ''
Sunday Referee'', netting him new admirers from the London poetry world, including
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess ...
and
Edwin Muir
Edwin Muir CBE (15 May 1887 – 3 January 1959) was a Scottish poet, novelist and translator. Born on a farm in Deerness, a parish of Orkney, Scotland, he is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry written in plain language and w ...
.
The anthology was published by
Fortune Press, in part a vanity publisher that did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of copies themselves. A similar arrangement was used by other new authors including
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, ''The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, ''Jill'' (1946) and ''A Girl in Winter'' (1947 ...
.
In September 1935, Thomas met Vernon Watkins, thus beginning a lifelong friendship. Thomas introduced Watkins, working at Lloyds Bank at the time, to his friends, now known as
The Kardomah Gang
The Kardomah Gang,The Kardomah Boys, or Kardomah Group was a group of bohemian friends – artists, musicians, poets and writers – who, in the 1930s, frequented the Kardomah Café in Castle Street, Swansea, Wales.
Members of the Gang ...
. In those days, Thomas used to frequent the cinema on Mondays with Tom Warner who, like Watkins, had recently suffered a
nervous breakdown
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
. After these trips, Warner would bring Thomas back for supper with his aunt. On one occasion, when she served him a boiled egg, she had to cut its top off for him, as Thomas did not know how to do this. This was because his mother had done it for him all his life, an example of her coddling him. Years later, his wife Caitlin would still have to prepare his eggs for him.
In December 1935, Thomas contributed the poem "The Hand That Signed the Paper" to Issue 18 of the bi-monthly ''New Verse''. In 1936, his next collection ''Twenty-five Poems'', published by
J. M. Dent
Joseph Malaby Dent (30 August 1849 – 9 May 1926) was a British book publisher who produced the Everyman's Library series.
Early life
Dent was born in Darlington in what is now part of the Grade II listed Britannia Inn. After a short and ...
, also received much critical praise.
Two years later, in 1938, Thomas won the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry; it was also the year in which
New Directions offered to be his publisher in the United States. In all, he wrote half his poems while living at Cwmdonkin Drive before moving to London. It was the time that Thomas's reputation for heavy drinking developed.
By the late 1930s, Thomas was embraced as the "poetic herald" for a group of English poets, the
New Apocalyptics
The New Apocalyptics were a poetry grouping in the United Kingdom in the 1940s, taking their name from the anthology ''The New Apocalypse'' ( 1939), which was edited by J. F. Hendry (1912–1986) and Henry Treece. There followed the further anth ...
.
Thomas refused to align himself with them and declined to sign their manifesto. He later stated that he believed they were "intellectual muckpots leaning on a theory".
Despite this, many of the group, including
Henry Treece
Henry Treece (22 December 1911 – 10 June 1966) was a British poet and writer who also worked as a teacher and editor. He wrote a range of works but is mostly remembered as a writer of children's historical novels.
Life and work
Treece wa ...
, modelled their work on Thomas's.
During the politically charged atmosphere of the 1930s, Thomas's sympathies were very much with the radical left, to the point of holding close links with the
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, as well as decidedly pacifist and anti-fascist.
He was a supporter of the left-wing
No More War Movement and boasted about participating in demonstrations against the
British Union of Fascists.
Bert Trick has provided an extensive account of an
Oswald Mosley
Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
rally in the Plaza cinema in Swansea in July 1933 that he and Thomas attended.
Marriage
In early 1936, Thomas met
Caitlin Macnamara
Caitlin Thomas (née Macnamara; 8 December 1913 – 31 July 1994) was an author and the wife of the poet and writer Dylan Thomas. Their marriage was a stormy affair, fuelled by alcohol and infidelity, though the couple remained together until D ...
(1913–1994), a 22-year-old dancer of Irish and French Quaker descent. She had run away from home, intent on making a career in dance, and aged 18 joined the chorus line at the
London Palladium
The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in the famous area of Soho. The theatre holds 2,286 seats. Of the roster of stars who have played there, many have televised performances. Between 1955 a ...
.
[Ferris (1989), p. 151] Introduced by
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarge ...
, Caitlin's lover, they met in The Wheatsheaf pub on Rathbone Place in London's
West End.
[Paul Ferris](_blank)
"Thomas, Caitlin (1913–1994)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004 (subscription only) Laying his head in her lap, a drunken Thomas proposed.
Thomas liked to comment that he and Caitlin were in bed together ten minutes after they first met. Although Caitlin initially continued her relationship with John, she and Thomas began a correspondence, and in the second half of 1936 were courting. They married at the register office in
Penzance
Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...
, Cornwall, on 11 July 1937.
In May 1938, they moved to Wales, renting a cottage in the village of
Laugharne
Laugharne ( cy, Talacharn) is a town on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tâf.
The ancient borough of Laugharne Township ( cy, Treflan Lacharn) with its Corporation and Charter is a unique survival ...
, Carmarthenshire. They lived there intermittently for just under two years until July 1941, and did not return to live in Laugharne until 1949. Their first child, Llewelyn Edouard, was born on 30 January 1939.
Wartime, 1939–1945
In 1939, a collection of 16 poems and seven of the 20 short stories published by Thomas in magazines since 1934, appeared as ''The Map of Love''. Ten stories in his next book, ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog'' (1940), were based less on lavish fantasy than those in ''The Map of Love'' and more on real-life romances featuring himself in Wales.
Sales of both books were poor, resulting in Thomas living on meagre fees from writing and reviewing. At this time he borrowed heavily from friends and acquaintances. Hounded by creditors, Thomas and his family left Laugharne in July 1940 and moved to the home of critic
John Davenport in Marshfield near
Chippenham in
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
. There Thomas collaborated with Davenport on the satire ''The Death of the King's Canary'', though due to fears of libel the work was not published until 1976.
At the outset of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Thomas was worried about conscription, and referred to his ailment as "an unreliable lung". Coughing sometimes confined him to bed, and he had a history of bringing up blood and mucus. After initially seeking employment in a
reserved occupation
A reserved occupation (also known as essential services) is an occupation considered important enough to a country that those serving in such occupations are exempt or forbidden from military service.
In a total war, such as the Second World War, w ...
, he managed to be classified Grade III, which meant that he would be among the last to be called up for service. Saddened to see his friends going on active service, he continued drinking and struggled to support his family. He wrote begging letters to random literary figures asking for support, a plan he hoped would provide a long-term regular income.
Thomas supplemented his income by writing scripts for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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, which not only gave him additional earnings but also provided evidence that he was engaged in essential war work.
In February 1941, Italy, South Leigh and Prague...
The following year, in April 1947, the Thomases travelled to Italy, after Thomas had been awarded a