Selected Poems 1934-1952, New Revised Edition - Softcover

Thomas, Dylan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811215423 ISBN 13: 9780811215428

Publisher: New Directions, 2003

Synopsis

A classic New Directions book revised for the 21st Century.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) prepared this volume in 1952―the author's choice of the ninety poems he felt would best represent his work up to that time―and it was published by New Directions in 1953 as The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas, shortly after his death. This book was then and remained, for all practical purposes, Thomas's "collected" poems and in that sense complete. However, with the 1971 publication of the 192 poems in The Poems of Dylan Thomas (also now available in a revised edition), Thomas's Collected Poems has naturally evolved to become Thomas's Selected Poems.

Thomas wrote his last poem, "Prologue," especially to begin this collection, and addressed it to "my readers, the strangers." Two unfinished poems are included in this edition: "Elegy," prepared by Vernon Watkins, and "In Country Heaven," prepared by Daniel Jones―both Welsh poets were life-long friends of Dylan Thomas. Textual corrections discovered over the course of forty years have now been incorporated, and a complete index of titles and first lines, as well as a brief chronology of the author's life, have been added.

As it has for half a century, this book includes the best of Dylan Thomas's poetry―"Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines," "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower," "And Death Shall Have No Dominion," "Poem in October," "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night," "The Hunchback in the Park," "In My Craft or Sullen Art," "In Country Sleep," and Thomas's poignant reflection on his youth, "Fern Hill."

About this title

About the Author

Dylan Thomas, born in Swansea in 1914, is perhaps Wales’ best-known writer, widely considered to be one of the major poets of the 20th century: many of his greatest poems, such as “Fern Hill” and ”’Do not go gentle into that good night”’ are beloved and widely studied. As well as poetry, Dylan Thomas wrote numerous short stories and scripts for film and radio–none more popular than his radio play Under Milk Wood. He led a fascinating and tempestuous life, which ended all too soon in 1953 when he collapsed and died in New York City shortly after his 39th birthday. 

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811215423
• ISBN 13: 9780811215428
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240