Dylan Thomas: A New Life - Rilegato

Lycett, Andrew

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0297607936 ISBN 13: 9780297607939

Casa editrice: Orion, 2003

Riassunto

Dylan Thomas was a sensation, both as a person and as a poet. His writing ¿ short stories as well as verse ¿ was hugely popular. He broadcast widely on the old BBC Third Programmes. Given to drink and womanising, his life was very public and in the more staid 1940s caused a continuing stir. In 1953, after completing the work for which he is best remembered, UNDER MILK WOOD, he left London for a US reading tour, where he had been ¿discovered¿ two years before. But he was still drinking heavily and in November 9, 1953 he died suddenly in New York. He was only 39.
Lycett's new life supercedes the previous biographies by Constantine Fitzgibbon, Paul Ferris and Andrew Sinclair. Since these were published Thomas's wife, Caitlin, and his son Llewelyn, have died. Lycett has secured the backing of the Dylan Thomas trustees and of Thomas¿s daughter Aeronwy.
The 50th anniversary is an ideal moment to reassess Dylan Thomas¿s genius as a writer and his short but tragic life. This biography provides a focus for a programme of Dylan Thomas reissues (Orion control his books) and Dylan Thomas celebrations.
Lycett's detective work has uncovered much new material about Thomas's rackety private life, including a procession of mistresses in America gained during his four visits there in the last two years of his life. He has also uncovered correspondence between Dylan Thomas and his publishers that throws interesting light on Thomas's attitude to his work and where he saw it progressing, both in verse and prose. The story is powerful, being an inevitable tragedy as drink takes increasing hold.

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Recensione

'Andrew Lycett's scrupulously researched book is a model of scholarly objectivity...definitive, revealing and painful.' (John Carey THE SUNDAY TIMES (12.10.03))

'[Lycett's} narrative benefits from many unpublished sources...The biography tells the story of Dylan's life with plenty of energy and local colour...Lycett's assiduous examination of letters and diaries has swelled the list of his love-affairs and exposed a body of unedifying unpublished verse characterised by schoolboy profanities.' (Jonathan Bate THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (12.10.03))

'This is a disturbing and impressive book about a sad man, a tragic man, a drunkard, a lovable cad, a Welshman and a poetic genius, all subsumed in the endlessly equivocal person of Dylan Thomas. No poet of our time has been more thoroughly analysed than our Dylan, but Andrew Lycett approaches the exhausting task with thoroughness, scholarship and true humanity.' (Jan Morris NEW STATESMAN (16.10.03))

'What does Andrew Lycett give us in this biography that is new? He helps us to recognise that Thomas was a more various poet and versifier than we would have imagiuned by quoting a number of excellent examples of unpublished light verse, which demonstrates what a great verse mimic Thomas could be. He makes it clear to us how much Thomas learnt from his years of filmmaking in the 1940s, how it helped to hone and clarify his later writing.' (Michael Glover FINANCIAL TIMES (18.10.03))

[an] astonishingly detailed, deeply and expertly researched, and captivatingly written biorgraphy...frankly, stunning...[Lycett] has not only chronicled Thomas's life intricately and almost month by month but also interpreted his relationships with others, putting Thomas's work into context...Apart from being a biography, this book is in many ways a readers companion - it is that detailed. Andrew Lycett's magnificent book has to be the definitive study of Thomas's life. (Martin Booth LITERARY REVIEW (November))

'Andrew Lycett sheds much new light on the work and personal life of Thomas's early life, which have been glossed over by previous biographers...an absorbing page-turner.' (Vanessa Curtis THE HERALD (Glasgow 18.10.03))

'this is the best biography of the poet I have ever read. Andrew Lycett has turned up plenty of scandalous new material about Thomas's private life, including a previously unknown diary of his last days kept by his American mistress Liz Reitell...he [Lycett] seems actually to like and understand Thomas's poems, bringing an intelligent discrimination to the business of relating them to his subject's life. All in all this is a book that no-one interested in Dylan Thomas can afford to be without. (Robert Nye THE SCOTSMAN (1.11.03))

he [Lycett] is particularly good on Thomas's income, translating figures to 2003 values to show how much the poet squandered. (Stephen Knight INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY (26.10.03))

'Andrew Lycett's excellent new life, brutally clear in many places, though never short of compassion, should make a just evaluation of Thomas possible at last.' (SUNDAY HERALD (Glasgow, 2.11.03))

Lycett narrates a fascinating story...Panoramic in its scope with heaps of anecdotes and a magnificent cast of supporting characters, this might well be the last workd on Dylan Thomas that the reader will need for some time. (Philip Hamer CITY LIFE (Manchester))

Descrizione del libro

A revelatory new life of the legendary Welsh writer who died amid alcohol and debts ¿ published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of his death.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Orion
• Data di pubblicazione: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0297607936
• ISBN 13: 9780297607939
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 448