Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea on 27 October 1914, the son of a senior English master. On leaving school he worked on the SOUTH WALES EVENING POST before embarking on his literary career in London. Not only a poet, he wrote short stories, film scripts, features and radio plays, the most famous being UNDER MILK WOOD. On 9 November 1953, shortly after his 39th birthday, he collapsed and died in New York City. He is buried in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, which had become his main home since 1949. In 1982 a memorial stone to commemorate him was unveiled in 'Poets' Corner' in Westminster Abbey.
A tour de force of oral poetry which oozes word pictures and onomatopoeic musicality * Guardian * Dylan Thomas disturbed the roots of our language in an organic way and gave it a new vitality * The Times * Roguish, prancing, with blazing characters and lines. The words dizzied me, their grandeur, their wit * New Yorker * A dazzling combination of poetic fireworks and music-hall humor * New York Times * It would be hard for any work of art to communicate more directly and funnily and lovingly what it is like to be alive -- Randall Jarrell