335 ‘this weekend must be given over to Dylan’: JMB to Bill Read, Monday (1950), Delaware.
335 his novel, Reuben Reuben: In this respect DeVries anticipated not only Kingsley Amis, who satirised Dylan as Gareth Porter in his book That Uncertain Feeling (1955), but also Amis’s son Martin who famously suffered McGland’s ‘agonies of hell’ over his bad teeth – though Amis fils did not commit suicide when he had to have them all out.
335 ‘You’ll be able to recognise him easily’: JMB to Bill Read, Monday (1950) Delaware.
336 ‘for his own endurance’: F.O. Mathiessen to JMB, 5 March 1950, Delaware.
336 ‘a very sick man: Reuben A. Brown to JMB, 17 March 1950, Delaware.
336 ‘in a heavy hung-overish desuetude’: JMB to Bill Read, Monday (1950), Delaware.
336 dinner with Morgan: interview with Frederick Morgan, May 2003.
337 Elizabeth Bishop and Dylan: see Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell, One Art, p. 202: also Bishop to Pearl Kazin, 16 November 1953?, One Art, p. 276.
338 ‘this vast, mad horror’: DT to CT, c. 11 March 1950, CL 836.
338 ‘all snivelling and grovelling’: Philip Larkin to Kingsley Amis, 21 November 1985, Selected Letters.
339 a fleeting visit to Cornell: see David Daiches in Tedlock (ed.), Dylan Thomas: The Legend and the Poet.
339 ‘I’m hardly living’: DT to CT, 15 March 1950, CL 839.
340 ‘bad actors out of an American co-ed film’: DT to CT, ibid.
340 Earlier, at Mount Holyoke: quoting ‘About Dylan Thomas’ in Curnow, Look Back Harder.
340 Dylan in Iowa: see West San Francisco Fault, October 1972.
341 the only English poet she knew: Another candidate was Professor Brewster Ghiselin, of the University of Utah, a friend of both Brinnin and Ray J. West Jr, who met Dylan briefly when his plane touched down in Salt Lake City. Dylan repaid his courtesy by reading at the University of Utah on his second United States trip, 18 April 1952. found it was a boy in drag: Isherwood, Diaries, 8 December 1953, p. 460.
342 ‘Dylan Thomas is here’: Kenneth Rexroth to JL, 29 March 1950, Selected Letters 137–8; see also California Living Magazine, 25 November 1979.
342 Witt-Diamant had a lunch appointment: for a description of this trip, see Witt-Diamant, CE.
342 Gavin Arthur: Back in 1928 Arthur had acted in Borderline, an avant-garde film made by Kenneth MacPherson, husband of Winifred Ellerman, known as ‘Bryher’, the rich patron of literature who had financed the magazine Life and Letters (whose editor Robert Herring was in the cast), as well as the scholarship which sent Dylan to Italy. The star of the film, which explored attitudes to race and colour, was Paul Robeson, in one of his most challenging but little-known roles. Bryher appeared in it, along with her companion the Imagist poet Hilda Doolittle (h.d.).
344 ‘a quite handsome hellhole’: DT to CT, 7 April 1950, CL 842–3.
344 another old literary friend, John Berryman: the meeting was recalled by Berryman in 1958, see Mariani, Dream Song.
345 ‘They had conjured up this dangerous little creature’: Isherwood, Diaries, 8 December 1953. Isherwood also recorded some of the additional detail about Dylan’s stay in Los Angeles.
346 She gave a more decorous version of the story: Winters, Best of Times, Worst of Times.
346 ‘My God what a swathe’: Ruth Witt Diamant to DT, Sunday night, probably 23 April 1950, Lilly Library.
347 Dylan at the University of Indiana in Bloomington: I am grateful for David Wagoner’s account.
348 ‘wheelbarrowed on to the Queen Elizabeth’: DT to John F. Nims and Mrs Nims, 17 July 1950, CL 854.
348 party at the Williamses: see account in Gruen, The Party’s Over Now, pp. 29–30.
349 Theodore Roethke came: see Roethke, ‘Memories and Appreciations’, Encounter, January 1954.
349 Stanley Moss: for his recollections, I am grateful for conversations in April 2003 and at other times.
349 Eugene Walter: see his description in the programme accompanying a special presentation of Under Milk Wood by the Joe Jefferson Players, Readers’ Theater, Mobile, Alabama, 27 May 1989.
351 a piece of information formally: Mike Watkins to David Higham, 24 May 1950, HRC. The piece for which Harpers Bazaar paid $300 was almost certainly ‘A Child Memories of Christmas in Wales’, an amalgamation of two earlier pieces, usually known as A Child’s Christmas in Wales. The magazine printed this in December 1950. Ann Watkins did not take the commission. This was not the only personal deal Dylan made, albeit unwittingly, during his trip. Part of Watkins’s 24 May letter to Higham – the record of his single meeting with Dylan, starting ‘Caught at last!’ – told how the poet had got himself into ‘some sort of scrape’ by recording, through the auspices of Oscar Williams, seven poems for the Esoteric record company. There were legal problems and Watkins intended to keep out. The letter also noted how Dylan’s work for ‘Pleasure Dome’, the record which accompanied Lloyd Frankenberg’s book, had gone without payment. The agency had copies of the discs and were chasing the matter up with the manufacturer, Columbia Records. As well as making personal deals with Kazin, Dylan had sold ‘Over Sir John’s Hill’ – originally in Botteghe Oscure – for cash to Frederick Morgan at Hudson Review. He had taken $50 out of a net sum of $750.87, which was owing to him as royalties from New Directions.
351 a farewell party for Dylan: Dawn Powell to Edmund Wilson 5 June 1950, Powell, Selected Letters.
352 ‘He cranks up that big voice’: JL to Kenneth Rexroth, 28 April 1950, Selected Letters.
CHAPTER 19
354 ‘kind Friends who helped [Dylan] pack’: Conrad Aiken to Edward Burra, 29 August 1950, Aiken, Selected Letters.
355 ‘As an author who almost never writes’: JL to DT 14 June 1950 Houghton.
356 ‘my reactionary red-nosed club’: DT to Pearl Kazin, 22 June 1950, owned by Jeff Towns.
356 ‘If the dark leagues say No’: DT to Pearl Kazin, 7 August 1950, owned by Jeff Towns. It would appear that this letter was written from Laugharne, using the Savage Club address. He then wrote to Pearl again on 13 August – this time a much lengthier five-page letter on headed Savage Club notepaper – written, presumably when he was down in London avoided Maggs Taylor and seeing Grisewood at the BBC.
358 In a letter to Bill Read: JMB to Bill Read, 5 September 1950, Delaware.
359 ‘arty in clothes and manner’: Heppenstall, Four Absentees, p. 180.
359 The wise old bird Wyn Henderson: Henderson to Bill Read, 28 February 1964, HRC.
360 ‘All was LIES’: DT to Helen McAlpine, 14 September 1950, CL 856/7.
360 ‘I’m in darkness’: DT to CT, early January 1951, CL 872.
362 This latter project: In his book The Growth of Milk Wood, Cleverdon refers to it as The Village of the Mad. Dylan apparently called it Madtown.
362 ‘I suppose you’ve come to throw us out’: interview with Alice Kadel, March 2002.
363 ‘cheerful animal noise’: The Listener, 21 December 1950.
364 Dylan spent his first few days in Tehran: I am grateful for the use of Bunny Keene’s diaries, which were lent to me by his son Richard Brooks-Keene.
364 ‘depressing and half-made’: DT to CT, early January 1951, CL 872.
364 ‘running down the Persian wops’: DT to CT, January 1951, CL 873.
364 he visited a hospital: DT to CT, 16 January 1951, CL 875.
365 ‘any dusty sunfried place’: DT to CT, 16 January 1950, CL 876.
365 ‘Your letter … made me want to die’: DT to CT, January/February? 1951, CL 877–8.
366 a rather more jaundiced impression: DT to PK, January 1951, CL 876/7.
366 ‘shivering with delight’: Mrs Suratgar, CE.
366 She admitted a romantic fling: see Ferris, Caitlin, p. 117–18.
366 ‘Dylan is here’: Bill & Helen McAlpine to Mr and Mrs George Reavey, 17 March (1951), HRC.
367 Betjeman did his best: John Betjeman to George Barnes, 11 May 1951, Betjeman
, Letters, Vol 1, p. 533.
367 prevailed on an Oxford friend, Mary Ellidge: I am grateful to Mary Ellidge’s daughter, Julia Davies, for letting me read her mother’s unpublished memoir, which includes an account of this visit to the Festival of Britain.
368 ‘conversation consisted of one or two written-out solos’: Kingsley Amis to Philip Larkin, 29 April 1951, Amis, Letters.
368 Amis expanded on: Spectator, 29 November 1957.
369 ‘my horribly cosy little nest’: DT to John Davenport, autumn 1950, CL 859.
369 In this pretty as a stricture town: DT to Lloyd Frankenberg and Loren McIver, 1950–51?, CL 909–913.
369 ‘I’m sick of Laugharne’: DT to JMB, 12 April 1951, CL 888.
370 ‘The only person I can’t show the enclosed poem’: DT to Marguerite Caetani, 28 May 1951, CL 891/2.
370 In a talk the following year: this was at the University of Utah in April 1952, and was written up in an account by Marjorie Adix, Tedlock, p. 66. See also Maud, Where Have All the Old Words Got Me?, pp. 76–80.
370 ‘which does not say a great deal’: DT to Marguerite Caetani, 18 July 1951, CL 893.
371 Dylan proposed translating: Wall, Headlong into Change, p. 182; further information from an interview with Barbara Wall, September 2002.
373 ‘I hope you will beat him sternly’: JL to JB, 21 August 1951, Delaware.
374 ‘I hate to leave this sea’: DT to Ruth Witt-Diamant, 10 October 1951, CL 903.
375 if Dylan had a ‘London dump’: Margaret Taylor to Stuart Thomas, December 1953, Thomas Trustees.
375 the corpse had an enormous erection: see Arlott, John Arlott.
375 ‘You are too good’: OW to Edward Weeks, 2 July 1951, Indiana.
375 ‘a beauty’: OW to Edward Weeks, 29 October 1951, Indiana.
375 ‘I have never had much success’: OW to Miss Phoebe Lou Adams, 7 November 1951, Indiana.
376 sold a story, ‘The Jester’, to Botteghe Oscure: it appeared in the April 1952 issue of the magazine – the same one as Dylan’s ‘Llareggub’.
CHAPTER 20
380 he might make a film with Len Lye: See Horrocks, Len Lye, p. 249.
380 discussed such an idea with the film director Michael Powell: See Powell, Million-Dollar Movie, p. 162. Dylan met Powell at the York Minster pub in London on 2 January 1952.
380 Stravinsky: see Stravinsky and Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky. Time did not run it: Barrett wrote her own account of the meeting for The Reporter, 27 April 1954. Time included some material in a review of Dylan’s Collected Poems on 6 April 1953.
381 Caedmon: I am grateful for conversations with Barbara Holdridge (née Cohen).
382 according to her friend Rose Slivka: in conversation with the author, April 2003.
382 Edith Sitwell told a friend: Edith Sitwell to Jack Lindsay, ?March 1952, Selected Letters (Virago), p. 345.
383 actress Judith Malina observed Dylan: Malina, Diaries.
385 According to Wagoner: Personal communication from David Wagoner.
385 Dylan sent a postcard to Ebie Williams: DT to Ebie Williams, 28 March 1952, noted CE.
386 Tanning attributed this behaviour: see Tanning, Between Lives.
386 Ernst inscribed his book, Misfortunes of the Immortals: in the possession of Jeff Towns. The book was written by Ernst with Paul Eluard.
387 Over the Easter weekend: Witt-Diamant, CE.
387 according to Patchen’s wife, Miriam: Smith, Kenneth Patchen. Thanks to Jonathan Clark.
388 Algren claimed to be ‘neither poet nor lush enough’: Nelson Algren to Ellen Borden Stevenson, 3 May 1952, HRC.
389 Ginsberg left an unappealing picture: Ginsberg, Journals. I am, I admit, making an assumption that Dylan’s meeting with Ginsberg happened the same night as the visit to the lesbian bar. However it is difficult to work out how it could have occurred at any other time. Ginsberg simply dates it ‘late April 1952’.
389 a dramatic telegram from Caitlin’s mother: Yvonne MacNamara to CT, telegram, ?April 1952, Delaware.
389 could sense something was wrong: Journal of Modern Literature, Special Gotham Book Mart Issue, vol 4, no 4, April 1975, p. 866.
392 Caitlin was dressed to impress: see account in Helen McAlpine to George Reavey and wife, 17 June 1952, HRC.
393 ‘My dear Marged, You told me, once, upon a time’: DT to Marged Howard Stepney, ?1952, draft CL, 932–3.
393 an appeasing letter: see DT to CT, 1952, CL 933–4.
394 ‘I began to feel nervous’: DT to Charles Fry, 16 February 1953, CL 969–70.
394 a repeat interview: NYT, 17 February 1952.
395 ‘If only we can get Llareggub on the air’: Douglas Cleverdon to DT, 26 August 1952, BBC Written Archives.
396 why he had ‘acrosticked’ himself: DT to E.F. Bozman, 10 September 1952, CL 935.
397 ‘for a whole year I have been able to write nothing’: DT to Charles Fry, 16 February 1953, CL 969.
397 his ‘distastrously limited subject matter’: Mandrake, Summer–Autumn 1953.
397 ‘Do really think most vital’: telegram DT to E.F. Bozman, 7 October 1952, CL 937.
398 On his return to Laugharne: see Quadrille with Raven, chapter 11, by Humphrey Searle, published on the Internet.
399 generous review: Spender called Dylan ‘a romantic revolting against a thin contemporary classical tendency … In (his) poetry the reader feels very close to what Keats yearned for – a “life of sensations” without opinions and thoughts.’ Spectator, 5 December 1952.
400 Dylan’s visit to Dan and Irene Jones: information on this and later visits from Dan Jones’s diary.
400 the peace of the town was disturbed: There is interesting material on this in Thomas, Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow.
402 his ‘best friend in the world: DT to Charles Fry, 16 February 1953, CL 969.
403 Foyles Poetry Prize for 1953: The recipient the previous year had been Roy Campbell, who had been startled to receive his award from his old sparring partner turned cultural ally Stephen Spender.
403 quarrelled ‘bitter[ly]’: Dan Jones, diary, 5 February 1953.
403 ‘feeling more crooked than ever’: DT to DH, 6 February 1953, CL 963.
403 old school friend Guido Heller: CE.
404 ‘Prologue’: it was published in the Atlantic in January 1953.
404 ‘appreciation, dramatic work, and friends’: DT to JMB, 18 March 1953, CL 979.
405 an Observer review: Observer, 6 July 1952.
405 Having declared his interest: See ‘Beyond National Literature? Dylan Thomas and Amos Tutuola in “Igbo masquerade”,’ New Welsh Review, No 60, summer 2003.
405 When the piece was published: Arlott, John Arlott, Andre Deutsch, 1994.
The actual words in the review in Time Atlantic, 6 April 1953, were ‘Dylan Marlais Thomas, 38, is a chubby, bulb-nosed Welshman with green eyes, a generally untidy air, and the finest lyrical talent of any poet under 40.’
406 an indulgent programme of Dan Jones’s devising: ‘Barbarous Hexameters’, recorded 13 April 1953.
CHAPTER 21
409 extracts from Dylan’s pre-war ‘novel’: these appeared in Weybright’s offprint New World Writing in November 1952 and May 1953.
412 ‘I’ve finished that infernally eternally unfinished “play”: DT to CT, c. 23 May 1953, CL 993.
413 Dylan told Caitlin about his meeting in Boston: ibid.
414 Professing his ‘eternal untouched love’: ibid.
415 ‘I miss you terribly much’: DT to Liz Reitell, 16 June 1953, CL 994.
416 Fry offered £1000 for the manuscript: see Gibbs, In My Time.
416 ‘That “play” of Dylan’s’: memo, n.d. New Directions archives, Houghton.
416 ‘a bit broad in places’: Martin dent to E.F. Bozman, 10 July 1953, quoted note to CL 1007.
417 Witt-Diamant remembered the new Queen: CE.
417 Learning that Roethke and his new wife, Beatrice: see Se
ager, The Glass House.
417 the ‘literary’ or the ‘history’: OW to DT, 31 July 1953, Thomas Trustees.
418 ‘Carissima Signora Caterina’: Giovanni Chiesa to CT, 27 July 1953, Thomas Trustees.
423 Locke’s last sight: CE.
CHAPTER 22
In writing about Dylan’s final trip to America, I acknowledge my use of Liz Reitell’s diary and other papers which were kindly given to me by her cousin Lois Gridley.
429 A sceptical observer of this convivial scene: George Reavey to Helen and Bill McAlpine, 21 November 1953, HRC.
430 Reavey saw him at the White Horse: ibid.
431 ‘really looking sick’: ibid.
432 a version of this story: Edith Sitwell to Jane Clark, 17 November 1953, Berg.
433 perhaps, he knew intuitively: Caitlin had sent Higham unpaid bills amounting to £131.12s.2d. mentioned additional sums of £46.10s, and referred to further unspecified debts. DH internal memo.
433 ‘Dylan wanted to visit the men-only bar’: Todd memoir.
435 ‘We must hurry out a book of his papers’: Ruthven Todd to Louis MacNeice, 23 November 1953, Thomas Trustees.
436 ‘to be the official sympathiser’: Bob McGregor to DH, 12 November 1953, Houghton.
437 So she prayed: Emily Holmes Coleman, diary, 8 November 1953, Delaware.
437 ‘What of Pearl?’: Helen McAlpine to George Reavey, 14 December 1953, HRC.
437 a literary conference at Bard College: see Mariani, Dream Song.
438 her later observation: Plimpton, Truman Capote, p. 404.
438 ‘chronic alcoholic poisoning’: see Dr William de Gutierrez-Mahoney to Dan Jones, 10 January 1954, Rob and Cathy Roberts.
439 Pearl Kazin’s brother Alfred spoke for all: Alfred Kazin, journal 10 November 1953, Berg.
439 Philip Larkin managed to extricate himself: Larkin to Patsy Strang, 11 November 1953, Larkin, Letters.
439 one ghastly mess: JL to Thomas Merton.
440 ‘I know I must not show my grief’: Margaret Taylor to Bill and Helen McAlpine, HRC.
440 ‘But he’s nice’: see My Friend Dylan Thomas.
443 ‘A group of Laugharne men openly share Caitlin’: DJ to Stuart Thomas, 18 May 1954, HRC.
444 She only vented her feelings: Florrie Thomas to Fred and Mary Janes, 7 June 1955, Hilly Janes.
Dylan Thomas: A New Life Page 59