Dylan Thomas: A New Life

By Andrew Lycett

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jul 5, 2005
• ISBN: 9781468304077

Andrew Lycett

Andrew Lycett is a writer and broadcaster who has written acclaimed biographies of Ian Fleming, Rudyard Kipling, Dylan Thomas, Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle. As a journalist, Lycett has contributed regularly to The Times, Sunday Times and many other newspapers and magazines. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Geographical Society.

Reviews for Dylan Thomas

[yooperprof · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

What I learned from this book: never get into a permanent relationship with an alcoholic poet!

[satyridae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I've been listening to this at bedtime for a couple of months. It's not an ideal way to read a new book, as each night I would have to figure out where I fell asleep the night before, and start over from there. The story of Thomas' life is not a happy one, as probably everyone knows. There are some parts of this bio that felt pretty judgmental to me- there are several times something gratuitous is added such as one character was introduced as homosexual, and then for no apparent reason we are given a précis of said character's partner's sexual kinks. The partner is otherwise not germane to the story, nor is the sexual orientation of the character.

The narrator is lovely. His accents are gorgeous. There were times, half-asleep, that I thought I was actually listening to Thomas.

Recommended for DT fans, but do yourself a favor and don't listen to it at bedtime.