Dylan Thomas: A New Life

In this riveting account of one of the twentieth century’s most brilliant and contradictory figures, now available again to celebrate Thomas’s 100th birthday, acclaimed biographer Andrew Lycett peels back the layers of story that have accumulated around Dylan Thomas.

When he died in New York in 1953, Thomas was only thirty-nine years old, and the myths soon 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, Lycett describes the development of the young poet, brings invaluable new insights to Thomas’s youthful poetry and the themes that continued to appear in his work, and unearth 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 poetry, plays, and short stories.